This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Advancements in nanotechnology and nanofluidics require an understanding of mass, momentum and energy transport in liquids confined in nanoscale enclosures or channels. Specifically, there exists a need for (a) fundamental understanding and modeling of the interface (Kapitza) resistances for realistic and technologically relevant liquid-solid interfaces and (b) determination of the limitations of continuum hypotheses for thermal transport applications involving nanoscale-confined liquids.
Intellectual Merit: The interface resistance and thermal transport in nanoscale-confined liquids will be investigated with the following objectives: (a) characterization of the liquid-solid interface resistances and Kapitza lengths for water-silicon, water-graphite, water-aluminum (hydrophilic) and water-gold (hydrophobic) interfaces, (b) development of phenomenological Kapitza length models for the aforementioned water-surface pairs, and model validation using experimental data available in the literature, and (c) exploration of the ranges of validity of the continuum hypothesis in water-filled nanochannels. The research will include development of computationally efficient, interactive thermal wall models for molecular dynamics simulations of nanoscale heat transfer and interface thermal resistances. Also investigated will be the temperature jump boundary conditions for nanofluid flow in nanoscale-confined geometries.
Broader Impact: Research results will be disseminated through presentations, conference and journal publications. The molecular dynamics model and code will be made available to the public through our web-site with a users? manual. This research will support the development of a new Ph.D. track in micro- and nanofluidics in the PIs institution.
