Development of a molecular-dynamics-based cluster-heat-capacity model for study of homogeneous condensation in supersonic water-vapor expansions.

Supersonic expansions to vacuum produce clusters of sufficiently small size that properties such as heat capacities and latent heat of evaporation cannot be described by bulk vapor thermodynamic values. In this work the Monte-Carlo Canonical-Ensemble (MCCE) method was used to provide potential energies and constant-volume heat capacities for small water clusters. The cluster structures obtained using the well-known simple point charge model were found to agree well with earlier simulations using more rigorous potentials. The MCCE results were used as the starting point for molecular dynamics simulations of the evaporation rate as a function of cluster temperature and size which were found to agree with unimolecular dissociation theory and classical nucleation theory. The heat capacities and latent heat obtained from the MCCE simulations were used in direct-simulation Monte-Carlo of two experiments that measured Rayleigh scattering and terminal dimer mole fraction of supersonic water-jet expansions. Water-cluster temperature and size were found to be influenced by the use of kinetic rather than thermodynamic heat-capacity and latent-heat values as well as the nucleation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]