Molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations for heat transfer in micro and nano-channels

Abstract

There is a tendency to cool mechanical and electrical components by microchannels. When the channel size decreases, the continuum approach starts to fail and particle based methods should be used. In this paper, a dense gas in micro and nano-channels is modelled by molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that in the limit situation both methods yield the same solution. Molecular dynamics is an accurate but computational expensive method. The Monte Carlo method is more efficient, but is less accurate near the boundaries. Therefore a new coupling algorithm for molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo is introduced in which the advantages of both methods are used. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.