DSMC Simulation of Subsonic Flows in Parallel and Series Microchannels

Abstract

Flows in uniform, parallel, and series microchannels have been investigated using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. For the uniform microchannel cases, at higher pressure ratio, mixed Kn-regime flows were observed, where the Knudsen number (Kn) varies from below 0.1 to above 0.1. Also, the higher pressure ratio makes the flow accelerate more as the flow develops through the uniform microchannel. In order to examine the heat transfer characteristics between the wall and the bulk flow, a linear temperature distribution was imposed on the wall. Most of the wall heat flux occurs within the channel entrance region while it remains a constant with a slight magnitude along the rest of the channel wall. For the series microchannel cases, the computational domain was established by adding three surfaces and excluding one region from the rectangular domain. Diffuse effects were observed near the interface of the two segments, where the flow upstream the interface can be either heated or cooled by the flow downstream depending on their temperature difference. In addition, the effect of the gas species was investigated by conducting the simulation using helium and argon respectively. It can be found that the speed of the gas with lighter molecular mass is much higher than that of the heavier gas. The computational domain of the parallel microchannel was established similarly to that of the series microchannel. Under a certain pressure ratio, more pressure drop occurs in the parallel parts as the gap height increases. The recirculation phenomenon was observed after the gap wall between the two parallel parts and was evaluated quantitatively in the present study by defining a parameter called the developing coefficient. The gap height between the two parallel parts has only slight effect of the flow development.