Physics of nanoscale immiscible fluid displacement

© 2019 American Physical Society. We investigate immiscible fluid displacement at small scales where slip lengths are on the order of characteristic system sizes, whereby Cox's law is not expected to be valid. Molecular dynamics simulations show that in this limit hydrodynamic bending becomes s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wang, Gerald J, Damone, Angelo, Benfenati, Francesco, Poesio, Pietro, Beretta, Gian Paolo, Hadjiconstantinou, Nicolas G
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society (APS) 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136616
Description
Summary:© 2019 American Physical Society. We investigate immiscible fluid displacement at small scales where slip lengths are on the order of characteristic system sizes, whereby Cox's law is not expected to be valid. Molecular dynamics simulations show that in this limit hydrodynamic bending becomes small and interfaces remain approximately spherical. In this case the only relevant angle for describing the interface shape is the dynamic microscopic angle at the fluid-solid interface. In our simulations, this angle is found to be described well by the molecular-kinetic theory originally proposed by Blake and Haynes. In general, this implies a different functional dependence between the contact angle (and related quantities) and the flow speed (or capillary number); this is demonstrated for the case of the force on the boundary for immiscible fluid displacement in a two-dimensional channel.