Gas-flow animation by the 'piston effect' in a microchannel

A. Manela, N. G. Hadjiconstantinou

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The 'piston effect', namely the time response of a fluid to an instantaneous change in the temperature of its boundaries, is studied for a rarefied gas confined in a slab. The problem is solved for the entire range of Knudsen numbers in the case where the prescribed temperature jumps at the walls are small. Analytic solutions are obtained in both collisionless and continuum limits and compared with low-variance direct Monte Carlo simulations (LVDSMC) of the Boltzmann equation. The collisionless analysis captures well the early-time dynamics of the system (at times t of the order of the mean collision time τcoll), where the gas motion is essentially ballistic, and the continuum-limit analysis agrees with LVDSMC predictions at times t≥50τcoll, where the system behaviour is dominated by molecular collisions. Between these two limits, the dynamics of the system is governed by the solution of the complete linearized Boltzmann equation. The results supply insight into the mechanism of continuum breakdown in heat-flow problems at the micro-scale. Extension of the theory to study the system response to arbitrary time-dependent heating is briefly mentioned and will be discussed in the presentation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNumerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics, ICNAAM 2011 - International Conference on Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics
Pages1126-1129
Number of pages4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011
EventInternational Conference on Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics: Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics, ICNAAM 2011 - Halkidiki, Greece
Duration: 19 Sep 201125 Sep 2011

Publication series

NameAIP Conference Proceedings
Volume1389

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics: Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics, ICNAAM 2011
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityHalkidiki
Period19/09/1125/09/11

Keywords

  • Microscale heat transfer
  • collisionless flow
  • low-variance Monte Carlo simulations
  • rarefied gas dynamics
  • slip flow

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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