Canonical molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations for liquid/vapor equilibrium in truncated Lennard-Jones fluid have been carried out. Different results for coexistence properties (orthobaric densities, normal and tangential pressure profiles, and surface tension) have been reported in each method. These differences are attributed in literature to different set up conditions, e.g., size of simulation cell, number of particles, cut-off radius, time of simulations, etc., applied by different authors. In the present study we show that observed disagreement between simulation results is due to the fact that different authors inadvertently simulated different model fluids. The origin of the problem lies in details of truncation procedure used in simulation studies. Care has to be exercised in doing the comparison between both methods because in MC calculations one deals with the truncated potential, while in MD calculations one uses the truncated forces, i.e., derivative of the potential. The truncated force does not uniquely define the primordial potential. It results in MD and MC simulations being performed for different potential models. No differences in the coexistence properties obtained from MD and MC simulations are found when the same potential model is used. An additional force due to the discontinuity of the truncated potential at cut-off distance becomes crucial for inhomogeneous fluids and has to be included into the virial calculations in MC and MD, and into the computation of trajectories in MD simulations. The normal pressure profile for the truncated potential is constant through the interface and both vapor and liquid regions only when this contribution is taken into account, and ignoring it results in incorrect value of surface tension.
1 December 2004 in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
A theoretically based closed-form analytical equation for the radial distribution function, g(r), of a fluid of hard spheres is presented and used to obtain an accurate analytic representation. The method makes use of an analytic expression for the short- and long-range behaviors of g(r), both obtained from the Percus-Yevick equation, in combination with the thermodynamic consistency constraint. Physical arguments then leave only three parameters in the equation of g(r) that are to be solved numerically, whereas all remaining ones are taken from the analytical solution of the Percus-Yevick equation.
1 February 1999 in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
A model for a chemically associating fluid, adsorbed in a disordered porous media, is proposed. The formation of the associates occurs through the directional bonding between the fluid particles. For simplicity, we restrict our attention to the dimerization of particles. In the absence of association, this model reduces to that of Kaminsky and Monson (KM) for the adsorption of methane in a xerosilica gel. This model is studied by means of the replica Ornstein–Zernike ROZ equations, with the hypernetted chain approximation, extended for associating fluids. It follows from a comparison with the computer simulation data that this theory yields a very good description of the structural properties of the KM model. The influence of the fluid density, the matrix packing fraction, and the association energy on the dimerization in the disordered matrix is studied. The fluid compressibility for the KM model and for the dimerizing fluid in a disordered matrix is obtained via the compressibility equation.