Convective Heat Transfer between Liquid Argon Flows and Heated Carbon Nanotube Arrays using Molecular Dynamics

Abstract

This paper presents the molecular dynamics simulations of unconfined forced convective flow through the nanostructures at steady state condition. A better understanding of forced convective flow through the nanostructures is important because of its wide range of applications in nano-scale devices. Present work focuses on the heat transfer process of argon flow over a carbon nanotube and carbon nanotube arrays with constant surface temperature using molecular dynamics simulations. We consider two elementary configurations for the case of carbon nanotube arrays based on the unit cell structure. The simulation domain consists of fixed carbon nanotubes surrounded with the flowing argon atoms. An extensive study of momentum and thermal transport between carbon nanotube and surrounded argon atoms are analyzed from its microscopic state. The heat transfer coefficient is found in the order of 108 W/m2K. The method proposed in this paper can be an elementary step for the geometry calculation of nano-structured heat sink in the high heat flux electronic chips.