Lattice boltzmann models with mid-range interactions

Abstract. An extension of the standard Shan-Chen model for non ideal-fluids, cater-ing for mid-range, soft-core and hard-core repulsion, is investigated. It is shown that the inclusion of such mid-range interactions does not yield any visible enhancement of the density jump across the dense and light phases. Such an enhancement can how-ever be obtained by tuning the exponents of the effective interaction. The results also indicate that the inclusion of soft-core repulsion can prevent the coalescence of neigh-borhood bubbles, thereby opening the possibility of tailoring the size of multi-droplet configurations, such as sprays and related phase-separating fluids