Thermal conductivity of simple liquids: temperature and packing-fraction dependence

The thermal conductivity of rare gases in liquid and dense fluid states has been evaluated using molecular dynamics simulation with the Lennard-Jones (LJ) potentials and the Green-Kubo (GK) formula. All the calculated thermal conductivities are in very good agreement with experimental results for a wide range of temperature and density. Special attention was paid to temperature and packing-fraction dependence which is nontrivial from dimensional analysis on the LJ potentials and the GK formula. First, the temperature dependence of T(1/4) was determined from the calculations at constant densities. Secondly, in order to obtain the dependence on packing fraction from that on number density separately, a scaling method of particle and/or cell size was introduced. The number density dependence of (N/V)(2/3) which is expected from the dimensional analysis of the GK formulas was confirmed and the packing-fraction dependence of η(3/2) was determined by using the scaling method. It turned out that the summarized functional form of m(-1/2)(N/V)(2/3)η(3/2)T(1/4) can well express both the calculated and experimental thermal conductivities for Ar, Kr, and Xe, where m is the atomic mass. The scaling method has also been applied to molten NaCl and KCl so that it has been found that the thermal conductivity has the packing-fraction dependence of η(2/3) which is much weaker than that of the simple LJ liquids.