Heat transfer coefficient of gas flowing in a circular tube under rarefied condition

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present heat transfer measurements of gas in a tube under rarefied condition. The measurements are made in a circular tube of inner diameter 25 mm for approximately constant wall temperature boundary conditions, with nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and helium as the working fluids. The range of Knudsen and Reynolds numbers covered in this study are 0.0022–0.032 and 0.13–14.7, respectively. Whereas the continuum values are correctly reproduced in our setup, the measured values for Nusselt numbers are very small in the slip regime. The measured values are two-five orders of magnitude smaller than the corresponding values in the continuum regime, and suggest that the Nusselt number is a strong function of Reynolds, Knudsen and Brinkmann numbers in the slip flow regime. These are among the first heat transfer measurements in the slip flow regime and the current theoretical and simulation models are inadequate to explain such low values of Nusselt number.