Flow of a Rarefied Gas between Parallel and Almost Parallel Plates

摘要

Rarefied gas flows in ultra-thin film slider bearings are studied in a wide range of Knudsen numbers. The generalized Reynolds equation first derived by Fukui and Kaneko has been extended by allowing for bounding surfaces with different physical structures, as an issue of relevance for applications. Since the solution of this equation requires that the Poiseuille and Couette flow rates between two parallel plates have to be accurately calculated in advance, we have used our recent results on Poiseuille flow and new results on Couette flow to evaluate the lubrication characteristics.