Rarefied gas flow behavior in micro/nanochannels under specified wall heat flux

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the effects of convective heat transfer on the argon gas flow through micro/nanochannels subject to uniform wall heat flux (UWH) boundary condition using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. Both the hot wall (q wall > 0) and the cold wall (q wall < 0) cases are considered. We consider the effect of wall heat flux on the centerline pressure, velocity profile and mass flow rate through the channel in the slip regime. The effects of rarefaction, property variations and compressibility are considered. We show that UWH boundary condition leads to the thermal transpiration. Our investigations showed that this thermal transpiration enhances the heat transfer rate at the walls in the case of hot walls and decreases it where the walls are being cooled. We also show that the deviation of the centerline pressure distribution from the linear distribution depends on the direction of the wall heat flux.