Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 29, 2025

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Molecular Stokes-Einstein and Stokes-Einstein-Debye relations for water including viscosity-dependent slip and
Sina Zendehroud1, Jan O Daldrop1, Yann von Hansen1
1Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Physics, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of liquid water at different temperatures and calculate the water viscosity, the translational and rotational water diffusivities in the laboratory frame as well as in the comoving molecular frame. Instead of interpreting the results as deviations from the Stokes-Einstein and Stokes-Einstein-Debye relations, we describe the translational and rotational diffusivities of water molecules by three models of increasing complexity that take the structural anisotropy of water into account on different levels. We first compare simulation results to analytical predictions for a no-slip sphere and a no-slip ellipsoid. We show that the no-slip sphere can approximate laboratory-frame isotropic translational and rotational diffusivities but fails to describe the anisotropic molecular-frame diffusivities. The no-slip ellipsoid can describe the translational anisotropic molecular-frame diffusivities exactly but fails to describe the translational and rotational anisotropic molecular-frame diffusivities simultaneously. Since an ellipsoidal model with slip boundary conditions is not analytically tractable, we define a heuristic spherical model with tensorial slip lengths and tensorial hydrodynamic radii. We show that this model simultaneously describes the laboratory-frame isotropic translational and rotational diffusivities, as well as, in a restricted viscosity range, the anisotropic molecular-frame diffusivities.
More Related Videos
08:42Challenges in Rheological Characterization of Highly Concentrated Suspensions — A Case Study for Screen-printing Silver Pastes
Published on: April 10, 2017
10:28Experimental Measurement of Settling Velocity of Spherical Particles in Unconfined and Confined Surfactant-based Shear Thinning Viscoelastic Fluids
Published on: January 3, 2014
Related Concept Videos
Stokes' Law
The expression for the force on a solid spherical object in a fluid is called Stokes' law. Stokes' law is valid only...
Navier–Stokes Equations
Euler's Equations of Motion
Viscosity of Fluid
Surface Tension, Capillary Action, and Viscosity
The various IMFs between identical molecules of a substance are examples of cohesive forces. The molecules within a liquid are surrounded by other molecules and are attracted equally in all directions by the cohesive forces within the liquid. However, the molecules on the surface of a liquid are attracted only by about one-half as many molecules. Because of the unbalanced molecular attractions on the surface molecules, liquids contract to form a shape that minimizes the number...
Viscosity
The SI unit of viscosity is...