Molecular dynamics simulation of fluid flow through nanochannels consisting of different superhydrophobic patterns

A Shadloo-Jahromi and M Kharati-Koopaee and O Bavi, INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS IN HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER, 124, 105278 (2021).

DOI: 10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2021.105278

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation has been carried out to calculate the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor of water flow through the nanochannels. The nanochannel walls were decorated by different arrays of nanoscale protrusion to generate superhydrophobic surfaces. The existence of nanostructures on the channel walls leads to trapping the air inside the nanocavities and, consequently, the system transmutes to a ternary (solid-liquid-gas) system. Our goal is to study how this transmutation affects the hydrodynamics of the fluid flow. The superhydrophobic walls were comprised of longitudinal and transversal nanoridge arrangements and results are obtained for various Reynolds numbers, pillar surface fractions and relative module widths. In this contribution, we presented correlations for the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor of water flow through the nanochannels including different superhydrophobic structures. Results indicated that the relation between friction factor and Reynolds number for the flow through the nanochannels is similar to the laminar flow through channels. Our results demonstrated that the friction factor in nanochannels decreased by employing superhydrophobic structures and also the friction factor in transversal nanoridge arrangement was significantly higher than that of the longitudinal one. We found that by decreasing the percentage of surface fraction and increasing the relative module width, the friction factor decreased.

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