Flow Properties of Fluids Confined in Parallel-Plate Nanochannels

摘要

Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to explore the fluid flows in parallel-plate nanochannels. A "channel moving" pressure-driven model is utilized to study the planar Poiseuille flows. Considering the slip boundary conditions, relationships among the pressure gradient, mean flow velocity and the channel width are investigated to couple the atomistic regime to continuum. The results show that the mean flow velocity almost linearly increases with the increase of the pressure gradient. The slope of the linear relationship between the pressure gradient and the mean flow velocity is nonlinearly decreased with increasing the channel width. The results indicate that the approximate accuracy is reduced with decreasing the channel width while the pressure-driven flows confined in nanochannels are approximately described by the Navier-Stokes equations.