Slip boundary conditions over curved surfaces

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the influence of surface curvature on the slip boundary condition for a simple fluid. The slip length is measured for flows in planar and cylindrical geometries with a range of wall-fluid interactions. As wall curvature increases, the slip length decreases dramatically for closely packed surfaces and increases for sparse ones. The magnitude of the changes depends on the crystallographic orientation and differs for flow along and perpendicular to the direction of curvature. These different patterns of behavior are related to the curvature-induced variation in the ratio of the spacing between fluid atoms to the spacing between minima in the potential from the solid surface. The results are consistent with a microscopic theory for the viscous friction between fluid and wall that expresses the slip length in terms of the lateral response of the fluid to the wall potential and the characteristic decay time of this response.