Mass flow rate prediction of pressure-temperature-driven gas flows through microanoscale channels

摘要

In this paper, we study mass flow rate of rarefied gas flow through microanoscale channels under simultaneous thermal and pressure gradients using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. We first compare our DSMC solutions for mass flow rate of pure temperature-driven flow with those of Boltzmann-Krook-Walender equation and Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook solutions. Then, we focus on pressure-temperature-driven flows. The effects of different parameters such as flow rarefaction, channel pressure ratio, wall temperature gradient and flow bulk temperature on the thermal mass flow rate of the pressure-temperature-driven flow are examined. Based on our analysis, we propose a correlated relation that expresses normalized mass flow rate increment due to thermal creep as a function of flow rarefaction, normalized wall temperature gradient and pressure ratio over a wide range of Knudsen number. We examine our predictive relation by simulation of pressure-driven flows under uniform wall heat flux (UWH) boundary condition. Walls under UWH condition have non-uniform temperature distribution, that is, thermal creep effects exist. Our investigation shows that developed analytical relation could predict mass flow rate of rarefied pressure-driven gas flows under UWH condition at early transition regime, that is, up to Knudsen numbers of 0.5.