CBET - 1066917 The objective of the proposed research is to investigate evaporation and boiling in graded micro- and nanoporous structures with pore sizes ranging from 10 nm to 100 microns by multiscale modeling and simulation and experiments. A hybrid molecular dynamics (MD) model that includes continuum model for the core of the nanoparticles and MD model for molecules of the nanoparticles at surface and working fluid will be developed. The transport phenomena in the vapor phase will be modeled using the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC). The two-way coupling between the MD and DSMC regions are considered by adding two buffer layers near the interface between these two regions. The coupling factors in the macroscale continuum model will be obtained by modeling momentum, heat and mass exchanges between different phases in the pore-scale model. The proposed hybrid multiscale models represent significant advancements over the existing macroscale continuum models. The state-of-the-art fundamental process models will allow the users of the technologies to search for optimized processing strategies to improve the performance of various two phase devices such as heat pipes. The developed multiscale model can also be extended to analyze transport phenomena in porous electrodes and gas distribution layers of the fuel cells to optimize the design of fuel cells. The simulation model can also be applied to biological and micro- and nanoscale heat transfer. The software will be made available at the e-Resource section of the Thermal-Fluids Central (www.thermalfluidscentral.org/e-resources/)
