Friction-Induced Fluid Heating in Nanoscale Helium Flows

We investigate the mechanism of friction-induced fluid heating in nanoconfinements. Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the temperature variations of liquid helium in nanoscale Poiseuille flows. It is found that the fluid heating is dominated by different sources of friction as the external driving force is changed. For small external force, the fluid heating is mainly caused by the internal viscous friction in the fluid. When the external force is large and causes fluid slip at the surfaces of channel walls, the friction at the fluid-solid interface dominates over the internal friction in the fluid and is the major contribution to fluid heating. An asymmetric temperature gradient in the fluid is developed in the case of nonidentical walls and the general temperature gradient may change sign as the dominant heating factor changes from internal to interfacial friction with increasing external force.