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The Couette flow is one of the fundamental problems of rarefied gas dynamics, which has been investigated extensively based on the linearized Boltzmann equation (LBE) of hard-sphere molecules and simplified kinetic model equations. However, how the different intermolecular potentials affect the viscous slip coefficient and the structure of Knudsen layer remains unclear. Here, a novel synthetic iteration scheme (SIS) is developed for the LBE to find solutions of Couette flow accurately and efficiently: the velocity distribution function is first solved by the conventional iterative scheme, then it is modified such that in each iteration i) the flow velocity is guided by an ordinary differential equation that is asymptotic-preserving at the Navier–Stokes limit and ii) the shear stress is equal to the average shear stress. Based on the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook model, the SIS is assessed to be efficient and accurate. Then we investigate the Knudsen layer function for gases interacting through the inverse power-law, shielded Coulomb, and Lennard-Jones potentials, subject to diffuse-specular and Cercignani–Lampis gas-surface boundary conditions. When the tangential momentum accommodation coefficient (TMAC) is not larger than one, the Knudsen layer function is strongly affected by the potential, where its value and width increase with the effective viscosity index of gas molecules. Moreover, the Knudsen layer function exhibits similarities among different values of TMAC when the intermolecular potential is fixed. For Cercignani–Lampis boundary condition with TMAC larger than one, both the viscous slip coefficient and Knudsen layer function are affected by the intermolecular potential, especially when the “backward” scattering limit is approached. With the asymptotic theory by Jiang and Luo (2016) [14] for the singular behavior of the velocity gradient in the vicinity of solid surfaces, we find that the whole Knudsen layer function can be well fitted by the power series ∑ n=0 2∑ m=0 2c n,mx n(xln⁡x) m, where x is the distance to the solid surface. Finally, the experimental data of the Knudsen layer profile are explained by the LBE solution with proper values of the viscosity index and TMAC.

Droplet dynamics in microfluidic applications is significantly influenced by surfactants. It remains a research challenge to model and simulate droplet behavior including deformation, breakup and coalescence, especially in the confined microfluidic environment. Here we propose a hybrid method to simulate interfacial flows with insoluble surfactants. The immiscible two-phase flow is solved by an improved lattice Boltzmann color-gradient model that incorporates a Marangoni stress resulting from non-uniform interfacial tension, while the convection-diffusion equation which describes the evolution of surfactant concentration in the entire fluid domain is solved by a finite difference method. The lattice Boltzmann and finite difference simulations are coupled through an equation of state, which describes how surfactant concentration influences interfacial tension. Our method is first validated for the surfactant-laden droplet deformation in a three- dimensional (3D) extensional flow and a 2D shear flow, and then applied to investigate the effect of surfactants on droplet dynamics in a 3D shear flow. Numerical results show that, at low capillary numbers, surfactants increase droplet deformation, due to reduced interfacial tension by the average surfactant concentration, and non-uniform effects from non-uniform capillary pressure and Marangoni stresses. The role of surfactants on critical capillary number (Cacr) of droplet breakup is investigated for various confinements (defined as the ratio of droplet diameter to wall separation) and Reynolds numbers. For clean droplets, Cacr first decreases and then increases with confinement, and the minimum value of Cacr is reached at the confinement of 0.5; for surfactant-laden droplets, Cacr exhibits the same variation in trend for the confinements lower than 0.7, but for higher confinements, Cacr is almost a constant. The presence of surfactants decreases Cacr for each confinement, and the decrease is also attributed to the reduction in average interfacial tension and non-uniform effects, which are found to prevent droplet breakup at low confinements but promote breakup at high confinements. In either clean or surfactant-laden cases, Cacr first keeps almost unchanged and then decreases with increasing Reynolds number, and a higher confinement or Reynolds number favors ternary breakup. Finally, we study the collision of two equal-sized droplets in a shear flow in both surfactant-free and surfactant-contaminated systems with the same effective capillary numbers. It is identified that the non-uniform effects in near-contact interfacial region immobilize the interfaces when two droplets are approaching each other and thus inhibit their coalescence.

In this work, a novel synthetic iteration scheme (SIS) is developed for the LBE to find solutions to Kramer's problem accurately and efficiently: the velocity distribution function is first solved by the conventional iterative scheme, then it is modified such that in each iteration i) the flow velocity is guided by an ordinary differential equation that is asymptotic-preserving at the Navier-Stokes limit and ii) the shear stress is equal to the average shear stress. Based on the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook model, the SIS is assessed to be efficient and accurate. Then we investigate the Kramer's problem for gases interacting through the inverse power-law, shielded Coulomb, and Lennard-Jones potentials, subject to diffuse-specular and Cercignani-Lampis gas-surface boundary conditions. When the tangential momentum accommodation coefficient (TMAC) is not larger than one, the Knudsen layer function is strongly affected by the potential, where its value and width increase with the effective viscosity index of gas molecules. Moreover, the Knudsen layer function exhibits similarities among different values of TMAC when the intermolecular potential is fixed. For Cercignani-Lampis boundary condition with TMAC larger than one, both the viscous slip coefficient and Knudsen layer function are affected by the intermolecular potential, especially when the "backward" scattering limit is approached. With the asymptotic theory by Jiang and Luo for the singular behavior of the velocity gradient in the vicinity of the solid surface, we find that the whole Knudsen layer function can be well fitted by power series., Comment: 28pages, 10 figures

For ultra-thin gas lubrication, the surface-to-volume ratio increases dramatically when flow geometry is scaled down to the micro/nano-meter scale, where surface roughness, albeit small, may play an important role in gas slider bearings. However, the effect of surface roughness on the pressure and load capacity (force) in gas slider bearings has been overlooked. In this paper, on the basis of the generalized Reynolds equation, we investigate the behavior of a gas slider bearing, where the roughness of the slider surface is characterized by the Weierstrass-Mandelbrot fractal function, and the mass flow rates of Couette and Poiseuille flows are obtained by deterministic solutions to the linearized Bhatnager-Gross-Krook equation. Our results show that the surface roughness reduces the local mass flow rate as compared to the smooth channel, but the amount of reduction varies for Couette and Poiseuille flows of different Knudsen numbers. As a consequence, the pressure rise and load capacity in the rough bearing become larger than the smooth bearing in the slip and early transition flow regimes, e.g. a 6% roughness could lead to an increase of 20% more bearing load capacity. However, this situation is reversed in the free-molecular flow regime, as the ratio of mass flow rate between Couette and Poiseuille flows is smaller than that in the smooth channel. Interestingly, between the two extremes, we have found a novel "rarefaction cloaking" effect, where the load capacity of a rough bearing equals to that of a smooth bearing at a certain range of Knudsen numbers, as if the roughness does not exist.

An improved wetting boundary implementation strategy is proposed based on lattice Boltzmann color-gradient model in this paper. In this strategy, an extra interface force condition is demonstrated based on the diffuse interface assumption and is employed in contact line region. It has been validated by three benchmark problems: static droplet wetting on a flat surface and a curved surface, and dynamic capillary filling. Good performances are shown in all three cases. Relied on the strict validation to our scheme, the viscous fingering phenomenon of immiscible fluids displacement in a two-dimensional channel has been restudied in this paper. High viscosity ratio, wide range contact angle, accurate moving contact line and mutual independence between surface tension and viscosity are the obvious advantages of our model. We find the linear relationship between the contact angle and displacement velocity or variation of finger length. When the viscosity ratio is smaller than 20, the displacement velocity is increasing with increasing viscosity ratio and reducing capillary number, and when the viscosity ratio is larger than 20, the displacement velocity tends to a specific constant. A similar conclusion is obtained on the variation of finger length., Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures

Over the last two decades, lattice Boltzmann methods have become an increasingly popular tool to compute the flow in complex geometries such as porous media. In addition to single phase simulations allowing, for example, a precise quantification of the permeability of a porous sample, a number of extensions to the lattice Boltzmann method are available which allow to study multiphase and multicomponent flows on a pore scale level. In this article, we give an extensive overview on a number of these diffuse interface models and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, we shortly report on multiphase flows containing solid particles, as well as implementation details and optimization issues., Schlumberger-Doll Research Center, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO/STW (Vidi grant 10787), Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (Netherlands) (FOM/Shell IPP (09iPOG14 - “Detection and guidance of nanoparticles for enhanced oil recovery”)), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LDRD Program and Institutional Computing Program), Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER)), National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (China) (Thousand Youth Talents Program)

Over the last two decades, lattice Boltzmann methods have become an increasingly popular tool to compute the flow in complex geometries such as porous media. In addition to single phase simulations allowing, for example, a precise quantification of the permeability of a porous sample, a number of extensions to the lattice Boltzmann method are available which allow to study multiphase and multicomponent flows on a pore scale level. In this article we give an extensive overview on a number of these diffuse interface models and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, we shortly report on multiphase flows containing solid particles, as well as implementation details and optimization issues., Comment: 50 pages, 13 figures in Computational Geosciences (2016)

Over the last two decades, lattice Boltzmann methods have become an increasingly popular tool to compute the flow in complex geometries such as porous media. In addition to single phase simulations allowing, for example, a precise quantification of the permeability of a porous sample, a number of extensions to the lattice Boltzmann method are available which allow to study multiphase and multicomponent flows on a pore scale level. In this article we give an extensive overview on a number of these diffuse interface models and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, we shortly report on multiphase flows containing solid particles, as well as implementation details and optimization issues.