水滴撞击结冰过程的分子动力学模拟

利用三维分子动力学模拟方法,研究了纳米尺度水滴撞击冷壁面的结冰过程.数值模拟中,统计系统采用微正则系综,势能函数选用TIP4P/ice模型,温度校正使用速度定标法,牛顿运动方程的求解采用文莱特算法,水滴内部结冰过程则通过统计垂直方向水分子温度分布来判定.研究发现,当冷壁面温度降低时,水滴完全结冰的时间减小,但水滴降至壁面温度的时间却增大;同时随着壁面亲水性降低,水滴内部热传递速度减慢(尤其是冷壁面与水滴底端分子层间),水滴内部温度趋于均匀,但水滴完全结冰时间延长.

Molecular dynamics simulation of freezing process of water droplets impinging on cold surface

The freezing of water droplet is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature. Although the freezing process of water droplet impacting on cold surfaces is widely observed on a macroscopic scale, the study of freezing process on a micro-scale is still deficient, and it is definitely difficult to study micro-droplets and nano-droplets using experimental methods due to the obstacles in both generation and observation. For these reasons, simulation methods using molecular dynamics (MD) have been proposed to study micro-droplets and nano-droplets, as molecular dynamics can trace each atom, count up the collective behavior of a group of atoms and describe the detail interaction between atoms. In this paper, a three-dimensional model is established by molecular dynamics simulation to study the freezing process of water droplets impinging on a cold solid surface on a nanoscale. We select the micro-canonical ensemble (NVE) as a statistical system and the TIP4P/ice model as a potential energy function to simulate oxygen atoms, hydrogen atoms and water molecules. The LJ/126 model is used to simulate the interaction between water molecules and solid atoms. Different wettability walls are simulated by adjusting the potential energy parameters. For all the simulations, the velocity-rescale method is used to keep the temperature constant and the Verlet algorithm is adopted to solve the Newton equations. In the velocity-rescale method, the temperature is calculated by using the profile-unbiased thermostat. The freezing process inside the water droplet is determined by the temperature distribution of water molecules along the vertical direction, which is more concise than by the location coordinates of the microscopic atoms. Through the numerical experimentations, we find that when the surface temperature decreases, the completely freezing time of drops is reduced; meanwhile, the time required for water temperature to drop down to the wall temperature is increased. Moreover, the heat transfer inside the water droplet slows down with the decreasing of wall hydrophilicity while the total freezing time is prolonged.