Nanoscale roughness effect on Maxwell-like boundary conditions for the Boltzmann equation

Journal Article · Mon Aug 15 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Physics of Fluids

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4960024· OSTI ID:22598911

It is well known that the roughness of the wall has an effect on microscale gas flows. This effect can be shown for large Knudsen numbers by using a numerical solution of the Boltzmann equation. However, when the wall is rough at a nanometric scale, it is necessary to use a very small mesh size which is much too expansive. An alternative approach is to incorporate the roughness effect in the scattering kernel of the boundary condition, such as the Maxwell-like kernel introduced by the authors in a previous paper. Here, we explain how this boundary condition can be implemented in a discrete velocity approximation of the Boltzmann equation. Moreover, the influence of the roughness is shown by computing the structure scattering pattern of mono-energetic beams of the incident gas molecules. The effect of the angle of incidence of these molecules, of their mass, and of the morphology of the wall is investigated and discussed in a simplified two-dimensional configuration. The effect of the azimuthal angle of the incident beams is shown for a three-dimensional configuration. Finally, the case of non-elastic scattering is considered. All these results suggest that our approach is a promising way to incorporate enough physics of gas-surface interaction, at a reasonable computing cost, to improve kinetic simulations of micro- and nano-flows.

• OSTI ID: 22598911
• Journal Information: Physics of Fluids, Journal Name: Physics of Fluids Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 28; ISSN 1070-6631; ISSN PHFLE6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACCIDENTS
APPROXIMATIONS
BEAMS
BOLTZMANN EQUATION
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
CONFIGURATION
ELASTIC SCATTERING
GAS FLOW
INCIDENCE ANGLE
KERNELS
MORPHOLOGY
NANOSTRUCTURES
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
ROUGHNESS
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
WALLS