Multicomponent Energy Conserving Dissipative Particle Dynamics: A General Framework for Mesoscopic Heat Transfer Applications

Abstract

A multicomponent framework for energy conserving dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) is presented for the first time in both dimensional and dimensionless forms. Explicit definitions for unknown scaling factors that are consistent with DPD convention are found by comparing the present, general dimensionless governing equations to the standard DPD expressions in the literature. When the scaling factors are chosen based on the solvent in a multicomponent system, the system of equations reduces to a set that is easy to handle computationally. A computer code based on this multicomponent framework was validated, under the special case of identical components, for one-dimensional transient and one- and two-dimensional steady-state heat conduction in a random DPD solid. The results, which compare well with existing DPD works and with analytical solutions in one and two dimensions, show the promise of energy conserving DPD for modeling heat transfer at mesoscopic length scales.