A molecular dynamics simulation on the convective heat transfer in nanochannels

Abstract

The understanding of the flow and heat transfer processes for fluid through micro- and nanochannels becomes imperative due to its wide application in micro- and nano-fluidic devices. In this paper, the method to simulate the convective heat transfer process in molecular dynamics is improved based on a previous study. With this method, we simulate a warm dense fluid flowing through a cold parallel-plate nanochannel with constant wall temperature. The characteristics of the velocity and temperature fields are analysed. The temperature difference between the bulk average temperature of fluid and the wall temperature decreases in an exponential form along the flow direction. The Nusselt number for the laminar flow in parallel-plate nanochannel is smaller than its corresponding value at macroscale. It could be attributed to the temperature jump at the fluid–wall interface, which decreases the temperature gradient near the wall. The results also reveal that the heat transfer coefficient is related to the surface wettabilities, which differs from that in the macroscopic condition.