Dissipative Particle Dynamics and other particle methods for multiphase fluid flow in fractured and porous media

Abstract

Particle methods are much less computationally efficient than grid based numerical solution of the Navier Stokes equation, and they have been used much less extensively, particularly for engineering applications. However, they have important advantages for some applications. These advantages include rigorous mass conservation, momentum conservation and isotropy. In addition, there is no need for explicit interface tracking/capturing. Code development effort is relatively low, and it is relatively simple to simulate flows with moving boundaries. In addition, it is often quite easy to include coupling of fluid flow with other physical phenomena such a phase separation. Here we describe the application of three particle methods: molecular dynamics, dissipative particle dynamics and smoothed particle hydrodynamics. While these methods were developed to simulate fluids and other materials on three quite different scales -the molecular, meso and continuum scales, they are very closely related from a computational point of view. The mesoscale (between the molecular and continuum scales) dissipative particle dynamics method can be used to simulate systems that are too large to simulate using molecular dynamics but small enough for thermal fluctuations to play an important role. Important examples include polymer solutions, gels, small particle suspensions and membranes. In these applications inter particle and intra molecular hydrodynamic interactions are automatically included

Thermal decomposition of a honeycomb-network sheet: A molecular dynamics simulation study

“…6b, f and Fig. 6c, g. Such difference in the bond scission mechanism at different temperatures has been observed [43] before. It appears that at T = 0.1 the membrane periphery undergoes stronger oscillations than the membrane bulk which lead to bond scission at the rim while in the inner part of the sheet the monomers mutually block each other and the bonds remain largely intact.…”

A phase-field approach to no-slip boundary conditions in dissipative particle dynamics and other particle models for fluid flow in geometrically complex confined systems

“…The method was also successfully applied in earlier investigations of multiphase unsaturated flow through straight channel, complex fractures, and fracture junctions. 40 …”

Discrete-element model for the interaction between ocean waves and sea ice

“…In DEM, both the grains and the mechanical bonds are deformable, and the bonds may break when either the tensile or the shear stress exceeds the critical strength. Similar to other popular particle methods, such as smoothed particle hydrodynamics [17,18] and dissipative particle dynamics [18][19][20], the movement of each DEM particle, including translation and rotation, can be calculated from Newton's second law through explicit numerical integration in the fashion of molecular dynamics (MD).…”