Local linear viscoelasticity of confined fluids

In this paper the authors propose a novel method to study the local linear viscoelasticity of fluids confined between two walls. The method is based on the linear constitutive equation and provides details about the real and imaginary parts of the local complex viscosity. They apply the method to a simple atomic fluid undergoing zero mean oscillatory flow using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The method shows that the viscoelastic properties of the fluid exhibit dramatic spatial changes near the wall-fluid boundary due to the high density in this region. It is also shown that the real part of the viscosity converges to the frequency dependent local shear viscosity sufficiently far away from the wall. This also provides valuable information about the transport properties in the fluid, in general. The viscosity is compared with predictions from the local average density model. The two methods disagree in that the local average density model predicts larger viscosity variations near the wall-fluid boundary than what is observed through the method presented here. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.