Simulation of non-equilibrium gas kinetic processes in the multitube Knudsen pump on the basis of the Boltzmann equation

Abstract

A periodic system of multitube micropumps with pumping down based on the Knudsen effect is simulated in this work. The simulation is performed on an unstructured mesh. The Boltzmann equation is solved, and the advection and relaxation processes are simulated separately. The differential equation for advection is approximated with the first-order discrete difference scheme, and the collision integral is calculated with the projection method. The dependences of pump-down on the Knudsen number and temperature gradient were obtained from supercomputer computations. Data on the pumping rate were also obtained.