  The lattice Boltzmann method can be used to simulate flow through porous
media with full geometrical resolution. With such a direct numerical
simulation, it becomes possible to study fundamental effects which are
difficult to assess either by developing macroscopic mathematical models or
experiments. We first evaluate the lattice Boltzmann method with various
boundary handling of the solid-wall and various collision operators to assess
their suitability for large scale direct numerical simulation of porous media
flow. A periodic pressure drop boundary condition is used to mimic the pressure
driven flow through the simple sphere pack in a periodic domain. The evaluation
of the method is done in the Darcy regime and the results are compared to a
semi-analytic solution. Taking into account computational cost and accuracy, we
choose the most efficient combination of the solid boundary condition and
collision operator. We apply this method to perform simulations for a wide
range of Reynolds numbers from Stokes flow over seven orders of magnitude to
turbulent flow. Contours and streamlines of the flow field are presented to
show the flow behavior in different flow regimes. Moreover, unknown parameters
of the Forchheimer, the Barree--Conway and friction factor models are evaluated
numerically for the considered flow regimes.
