Investigation of the characteristics of heat current in a nanofluid based on molecular dynamics simulation

• Published in: Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Materials science & processing, 2012-09, Vol.108 (3), p.537-544
• Main Authors: Jia, Tao, Zhang, Yuwen, Ma, H. B., Chen, J. K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry; Colloidal state and disperse state; Condensed Matter Physics; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Exact sciences and technology; General and physical chemistry; Machines; Manufacturing; Nanotechnology; Optical and Electronic Materials; Physical and chemical studies. Granulometry. Electrokinetic phenomena; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Processes; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thermal conduction in nonmetallic liquids; Thin Films; Transport properties of condensed matter (nonelectronic)
• ISSN: 0947-8396; 1432-0630
• DOI: 10.1007/s00339-012-7019-y

Molecular dynamics simulation of nanofluid system composed of argon liquid and copper nanoparticle was carried out in this paper. To ensure the interatomic force gradually decreases to zero at the cut-off distance, Stoddard and Ford potential function was employed. Green–Kubo method was used to obtain the thermal conductivity. The characteristics of the heat current were measured by its mean value, variance, third moment, and the Shannon entropy. It was found that the thermal conductivity increases as the nanoparticle volume fraction increases, and so do the variance and the Shannon entropy of the heat current. The third moment of the heat current was almost zero, indicating that the probability distribution of the heat current is nearly symmetric about its mean value. Autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation functions of the heat current were used to investigate the correlation between the discrete heat current value and different lags.