Limit consistency of lattice Boltzmann equations

We establish the notion of limit consistency as a modular part in proving the consistency of lattice Boltzmann equations (LBEs) with respect to a given partial differential equation (PDE) system. The incompressible Navier--Stokes equations (NSE) are used as a paragon. Based upon the hydrodynamic limit of the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) Boltzmann equation towards the NSE, we provide a successive discretization by nesting conventional Taylor expansions and finite differences. We track the discretization state of the domain for the particle distribution functions and measure truncation errors at all levels within the derivation procedure. By parameterizing equations and proving the limit consistency of the respective families of equations, we retain the path toward the targeted PDE at each step of discretization, that is, for the discrete velocity BGK Boltzmann equations and the space-time discretized LBEs. As a direct result, we unfold the discretization technique of lattice Boltzmann methods as chaining finite differences and provide a generic top-down derivation of the numerical scheme that upholds the continuous limit.