Microscale fluid flow induced by thermoviscous expansion along a traveling wave
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-11-13 v1
Abstract
The thermal expansion of a fluid combined with a temperature-dependent viscosity introduces nonlinearities in the Navier-Stokes equations unrelated to the convective momentum current. The couplings generate the possibility for net fluid flow at the microscale controlled by external heating. This novel thermo-mechanical effect is investigated for a thin fluid chamber by a numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations and analytically by a perturbation expansion. A demonstration experiment confirms the basic mechanism and quantitatively validates our theoretical analysis.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0804.0384,
title = {Microscale fluid flow induced by thermoviscous expansion along a traveling wave},
author = {Franz M. Weinert and Jonas A. Kraus and Thomas Franosch and Dieter Braun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.0384},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Physical Review Letters