A kinetic theory description of liquid menisci at the microscale

Abstract

A kinetic model for the study of capillary flows in devices with microscale geometry ispresented.The model is based on the Enskog-Vlasov kinetic equation and provides a reasonabledescription of both fluid-fluid and fluid-wall interactions.Numerical solutions are obtained by an extension of the classical Direct Simulation MonteCarlo (DSMC) to dense fluids.The equilibrium properties of liquid menisci between two hydrophilic walls are investigatedand the validity of the Laplace-Kelvin equation at the microscale is assessed.The dynamical process which leads to the meniscus breakage is clarified.