Analytical solution of gaseous slip flow in long microchannels

Abstract

In this paper we provide solution of the Navier–Stokes equations for gaseous slip flow in long microchannels with a second-order accurate slip boundary condition at the walls. The obtained solution is general enough to allow evaluation of various slip models proposed in the literature. We compare our solution against the first-order accurate slip boundary condition and show that the solution has a weak dependence on Reynolds number, which was neglected in the earlier theory. It is emphasized that first-order slip models do not predict the “Knudsen paradox” (appearance of a minima in normalized volume flux at Knudsen number approximately unity), or a change in curvature of centerline pressure at Knudsen numbers of 0.16. A comparison with Boltzmann’s solution suggests that the derived solution agrees reasonably well up to Knudsen number approximately 5, which shows that the validity of Navier–Stokes to rarefied gases can possibly be increased by using a high order slip boundary condition and proper choice of the slip coefficients. This result is significant from the perspective of numerical simulations of rarefied gases.