Effect of rough inner wall of nanochannel on fluid flow behavior

T Mei and ZX Chen and L Yang and K Wang and RC Miao, ACTA PHYSICA SINICA, 68, 094701 (2019).

DOI: 10.7498/aps.68.20181956

Flow system on a nano scale, as an effective and economic system, has been widely employed. While on a macroscopic scale, for the non-slip boundary, the velocity of the fluid at the surface is assumed to be consistent with the surface. This approximation may become invalid on a smaller length scale pertinent to the operation of microfluid devices. The interface slip effect has a significant influence on the flow because of its higher ratio of surface to volume. In this paper, the Poiseuille flow, which is composed of two infinite parallel asymmetric walls, is studied by the molecular dynamics method. The influence of wall roughness and surface wettability of channel on fluid flow in the channel are analyzed. The results show that the asymmetric upper and lower wall can lead to an asymmetric distribution of flow parameters. The change of wall roughness and wettability would affect the flow characteristics of fluid atoms near the wall. Due to the influence of wall grooves, the number density distribution near the rough wall is lower than that on the smooth wall side. As the rib height and wall wettability increase, the number density of fluid atoms in the groove increases gradually, and the change of the rib spacing does not substantially affect the number density distribution of fluid atoms near the rough wall. For different structure types of walls, the real solid- liquid boundary positions are determined by simulating the velocity field distribution in the channel under both Couette flow and Poiseuille flow, which can help us to better analyze the interface slip effect. The variation of wall roughness and wettability can affect the position of the solid-liquid interface. The change of rib height and wettability can greatly influence the velocity distribution in channel, and the position of the solid-liquid boundary as well. Conversely, the rib spacing has a less effect on the boundary position. The difference in boundary position can affect the interface slip effect. We can find the slip velocity and the slip length on one side of the rough wall to be smaller than those on the smooth wall side, and as the rib height and wall wettability increase, the slip velocity and the slip length significantly decrease near the rough wall side. The effect of rib spacing on fluid flow is trivial, and the interface slip velocity and length are relatively stable.

Return to Publications page