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Abstract: Flow of a rarefied gas through a cylindrical tube connecting two reservoirs maintained at a small pressure difference is considered using the axisymmetric version of the linearised BGK kinetic model equation subject to Maxwell diffuse–specular boundary conditions. This is a problem of five dimensions in phase space, solved in a fully deterministic manner using a parallelised discrete velocity algorithm. Results include flow rates as well as distributions of density and velocity perturbations, from the free molecular up to the slip regime and for length-over-radius () ratios ranging from zero (orifice flow) up to 20. The dependency of the results on gas rarefaction, wall accommodation and tube length is analysed and discussed. It is found that the Knudsen minimum appears only at . Furthermore, in the case of it is confirmed that the results are practically independent of the accommodation coefficient. Comparing the present linear results with corresponding non-linear ones, it is seen that linearised analysis can capture the correct behaviour of the flow field not only for infinitesimally small but also for small but finite pressure differences and that its range of applicability is wider than expected. Also, the error introduced by the assumption of fully developed flow for channels of moderate length is estimated through a comparison with the present corresponding results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A rarefied gas flow through channels (i.e. flow through parallel plates) of finite length has been modeled based on the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. The reduced flow rate and the flow field have been calculated as function of the gas rarefaction, the length-to-height ratio and the pressure ratio upstream and downstream of the channel. The whole range of the gas rarefaction including the free-molecular, transitional and hydrodynamic regimes and a wide range of the length-to-height ratio representing both short and long channels have been considered. Several values of the pressure ratio between 0 and 0.5 have been used in the calculations. It is shown that the rarefaction parameter has the most significant effect on the flow field characteristics and patterns, followed by the pressure ratio, while the length-to-height ratio has a rather modest impact. The Mach belt phenomenon is discussed in detail. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The flow of a monatomic gas through a slit and an orifice due to an arbitrarily large pressure difference is examined on the basis of the nonlinear Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) model equation, subject to Maxwell diffuse boundary conditions. The governing kinetic equation is discretized by a second-order control volume scheme in the physical space and the discrete velocity method in the molecular velocity space. The nonlinear fully deterministic algorithm is optimized to reduce the computational effort by introducing memory usage optimization, grid refinement and parallelization in the molecular velocity space. Results for the flow rates and the macroscopic distributions of the flow field are presented in a wide range of the Knudsen number for several pressure ratios. The effect of the various geometric and physical parameters on the flow field is examined. Comparison with previously reported corresponding Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) results indicates a very good agreement, which clearly demonstrates the accuracy of the kinetic algorithm and furthermore the reliability of the BGK model for simulating pressure driven flows. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The starting gas flow in a cylindrical channel is investigated in the whole range of the Knudsen number by numerically solving the governing time dependent kinetic equations in a fully deterministic manner. The gas is initially at rest and then due to a suddenly imposed uniform pressure gradient, is starting to flow. The motion is time dependent up to the point where the steady-state flow conditions are recovered. The flow field is modeled by the linearized unsteady BGK equation subject to Maxwell purely diffuse boundary conditions. The solution provides a detailed description of the evolution of the flow field with regard to time from the starting point, where the gas is at rest up to a certain time where almost steady-state conditions are recovered. Based on the results some insight of how rapidly a vacuum flow will respond to a sudden change, related to an externally imposed pressure gradient coming from a vacuum pump or a valve, is obtained. The total time to recover the stationary solution in terms of the rarefaction parameter exhibits a minimum close to the well known Knudsen minimum. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]