DPD simulation of non-Newtonian electroosmotic fluid flow in nanochannel

ABSTRACT

We use the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) method to simulate the non-Newtonian electroosmotic flow (EOF) through nanochannels. Contrary to a large amount of past computational efforts dedicated to the study of EOF profile, this work pays attention to the EOF of non-Newtonian fluids, which has been rarely touched in past publications. Practically, there are many MEMS/NEMS devices, in which the EOF behaviour should be treated assuming both non-continuum and non-Newtonian conditions. Therefore, our concern in this work is to simulate the EOF through nanochannels considering both non-Newtonian fluid properties and non-continuum flow conditions. We have chosen DPD as our working tool because it provides several important advantages comparing with the classical time consuming molecular dynamics method. Using the DPD method, we explore the effect of a few important fluid properties and nanochannel parameters on the EOF behaviour and the resulting flow rate magnitudes. Our investigation will result in a number of findings, which have not been reported in past research works.

KEYWORDS:

• Dissipative particle dynamics
• non-Newtonian fluid
• electroosmotic flow
• nanochannel

ORCID

Somaye Jafari http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7330-509X

Ramin Zakeri http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3014-7292

Masoud Darbandi http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3361-2743

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deputy of Research and Technology in Sharif University of Technology [grant number SUT-RTD-1386-202863].