Molecular Dynamics Study of Gas-Surface Interactions in a Force-Driven Flow of Argon through a Rectangular Nanochannel

KK Kammara and G Malaikannan and R Kumar, NANOSCALE AND MICROSCALE THERMOPHYSICAL ENGINEERING, 20, 121-136 (2016).

DOI: 10.1080/15567265.2016.1215364

In recent times, flows through micro- and nanochannels have gained prominence due to their applicability to the fast growing fields of micro- and nanotechnology among others. Understanding gas-surface interactions in such flows is crucial, because the size of the micro/nanoscale devices is typically comparable to boundary layer thickness near a wall and the surface starts playing a significant role. An attempt is made to understand these interactions by modeling simple force-driven argon gas flow between two parallel platinum plates by the molecular dynamics method. One of the most important parameters that describes gas-surface interactionsthat is, the tangential momentum accommodation coefficient, along with flow properties such as velocity and densityis calculated for a range of Knudsen numbers in the early transitional flow regime. A deeper insight into the flow physics is obtained by considering various case studies for the variation of aforesaid properties with respect to external driving forces and gas- wall interaction strengths.

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