Abstract
Free molecule drag on spheres moving at low velocities has long been understood. More recently, with the advent of high altitude aircraft and space flight, expressions have been obtained for free molecule drag on various bodies of special interest in aeronautics including spheres, flat plates and cones at various angles of attack, and infinite cylinders oriented perpendicular to the flow. For a remaining class of bodies that commonly obtains free molecule flow conditions, namely small airborne particles of various shapes, expressions for free molecule drag have not yet been reported. In this paper, a general integral expression for the creeping motion free molecule drag on a general convex body is derived and specific expressions are obtained for various finite bodies, viz. spheres, dises, cylinders, spheroids and cubes. The range of validity of these expressions is discussed and, for the case of spheres, verified by additional theoretical and by experimental results.
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