ABSTRACT

The thermophysical properties and thermal transport characteristics of complex fluids are a subject of growing interest in a variety of fields ranging from energy to medicine. The complex microscopic structure of these fluids renders fully atomistic investigations of such materials intractable and standard continuum constitutive approaches incomplete. Mesoscopic modeling approaches provide an attractive middle ground between these extremes. Energy-conserving dissipative particle dynamics (DPDE) is a particle-based mesoscopic model that includes thermal fluctuations, hydrodynamics, and an energy equation that models heat transfer. In this article, the theoretical foundations of DPDE are presented, procedures for calculating transport properties in DPDE are discussed, and applications of DPDE to nanofluids, thin films, and problems in conduction and convection heat transfer are reviewed. Recommendations are made for future research directions using this increasingly popular modeling method.