https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-03922-5
Regular Article
Numerical investigation into the compression characteristics of a multi-stage Knudsen pump with rectangular channels
1
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang University, 110044, Shenyang, China
2
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, 110819, Shenyang, China
b
xiaowwang812@163.com
c
Zhjzhang@mail.neu.edu.cn
Received:
22
September
2022
Accepted:
22
March
2023
Published online:
31
March
2023
In the rarefied gas, thermal creep flows are induced by temperature gradients along the walls. The Knudsen pumps based on thermal creep flows have great application potential in the micro-power systems. In this paper, the performance of the compression system comprised of a cascading multi-stage Knudsen pump for rarefied gas mixtures is numerically researched using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. The results demonstrate that, in the transition and free-molecular regimes, the gas compression effects of the device are observed, and the maximum compression effect occurs when Knudsen number is approximately at 0.2. In addition, with an increase in the cascading number of Knudsen pump, the replication characteristics of the flow fields can be observed, and the compression ratio (effect) increases significantly. Specifically, in the free-molecular regime, the dependence of compression ratio on the stage number is almost linear. However, in the transition regime with strong thermal creep flows, the dependence of compression ratio on the stage number is nonlinear. Lastly, according to the results of mass flow rates returned by different compression ratios, a dimensionless linear function correlation is proposed for practical purposes.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
