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Rarefaction effects on gas viscosity in the Knudsen transition regime

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DOI: 10.1007/s10404-010-0606-3

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Microfluid Nanofluid
DOI 10.1007/s10404-010-0606-3
RESEARCH PAPER
Rarefaction effects on gas viscosity in the Knudsen transition
regime
Vasilis K. Michalis • Alexandros N. Kalarakis •
Eugene D. Skouras • Vasilis N. Burganos
Received: 18 December 2009 / Accepted: 18 March 2010
Ó Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract The effects of rarefaction on gas viscosity are
investigated through the simulation of isothermal, low
speed flow in a long straight channel using the Direct
Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. Following
convergence to the flow field inside the channel, the
effective viscosity is calculated directly from its definition
using shear stress calculations in each individual cell
assuming that the gas flow is close to a local equilibrium
state. Averaging over the cross-sectional area at different
positions down the pressure gradient allows the determi-
nation of the gas viscosity as a function of the local
Knudsen number (Kn) along the channel. Following an
extensive investigation of this dependence over a wide
range of Kn values, it was conveniently found that a Bo-
sanquet-type of approximation describes very satisfactorily
the Knudsen number dependence of the viscosity over the
entire transition regime, i.e., from the slip-flow to the free-
molecular flow limit. Such a simple functional dependence
is expected to facilitate significantly phenomenological
descriptions and numerical computations of rarefied flows
that rely on the notion of an effective viscosity in the
transition regime.
Keywords Rarefied flow
Effective viscosity

DSMC
Straight channel
V. K. Michalis
A. N. Kalarakis
E. D. Skouras

V. N. Burganos (&)
Institute of Chemical Engineering and High Temperature
Chemical Processes, Foundation for Research and Technology,
Patras, Greece
e-mail: vbur@iceht.forth.gr
V. K. Michalis
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras,
Patras 26500, Greece
1 Introduction
The recent development of techniques capable of con-
structing micro-electro-mechanical devices (MEMS; Evans
et al. 2009) has led to an impressive increase of interest in
studying gas micro-flows (Karniadakis et al. 2005). The
characteristic length of these devices is usually of the same
order of magnitude as the mean free path of molecules at
typical operating conditions. This fact limits the applica-
bility of the typical phenomenological equations to
describe flow, as the continuum assumption upon which
these equations are based, is not valid.
The degree of rarefaction is customarily quantified by the
Knudsen number Kn, which is defined as the ratio of the
mean free path k of the molecules to some characteristic
length of the system. A well-accepted classification of gas
flow under rarefied conditions recognizes four flow regimes,
based on the Knudsen number (Barber and Emerson 2006).
For Jn \ 10-3, the continuum assumption holds and the
Navier–Stokes equation, complemented by the no-slip
boundary condition, at the walls is the appropriate tool to
describe flow. For 10-3 \ Jn \ 10-1, which is commonly
referred to as the slip-flow regime, the applicability of the
continuum equations can be extended using slip-velocity and
temperature-jump boundary conditions (Agrawal and Pra-
bhu 2008a, b; Dongari et al. 2009). The transition regime
10-1 \ Jn \ 101 is the most difficult to treat, and is the
subject of the present study. For Jn [ 101, the intermolec-
ular collisions become negligible and the so-called free-
molecular flow regime is customarily described by the
kinetic theory. Nevertheless, this classification is largely
empirical and the aforementioned bounds of the various
regimes should not be considered as exact values.
The Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method (DSMC;
Bird 1994; Alexander and Garcia 1997) is a stochastic
123
 Microfluid Nanofluid

particle-based technique, which has proven quite valuable proportional to k. An equally simple kinetic theory result,
method for the simulation of gas flow under rarefied con- proposed by Maxwell, for the bulk viscosity is (Pollard and
ditions (Bird 1998; LeBeau and Lumpkin 2001). In the Present 1948)
DSMC technique, the description of the system is given 1
through the definition of the positions and velocities of the l0 ¼ qck: ð4Þ
3
gas molecules through a sample of representative particles.
The system is evolving in discrete time increments during Alexander et al. (1998) and Hadjiconstantinou (2000)
which the particle translation step and the inter-particle examined the effects of the discretization error in DSMC
collision step are decoupled. The employment of only a calculations of the viscosity using the Green–Kubo theory.
small set of representative particles in the simulation and The resulting expressions are
the stochastic treatment of collisions are the key features of rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi !
5 mkT 16 L2y
the method and offer computational efficiency in compar- l¼ 1þ ð5Þ
ison to the more detailed molecular dynamics technique. It 16d2 p 45p k2
has been shown that the limiting behavior of DSMC, when
following a correction from Lilley and Sader (2009), and
the number of particles tends to infinity and the time step
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi" #
and cell size become vanishingly small, coincides with the 5 mkT 32 ðcm DtÞ2
solution of the Boltzmann equation (Wagner 1992). l¼ 1þ ; ð6Þ
16d2 p 150p k2
The objective of the current study is to investigate the
dependence of the dynamic viscosity of a gas in the tran- where d is the collision diameter, Ly is the width of the cell in
sition regime on the Knudsen number using DSMC cal- the direction normal to the flow direction, Dt is the time step
culations and provide an analytical expression for such and cm is the most probable speed of the gas molecules.
dependence. This expression would be extremely useful in Lilley and Sader (2009) investigated gas flow in the
phenomenological descriptions and numerical computa- Knudsen layer for small Kn values and suggested a power-
tions of rarefied flows in narrow channels or pores. Care law dependence of viscosity on the dimensionless distance
must be taken to avoid confusion between flow systems from the solid surface ye; which has the form
that involve dilute gases and systems involving gases
within tight passages. In the former case, the molecule l0 ye1d
le ðe
yÞ ¼ ð7Þ
collisions are rare in the absence of walls whereas in the Cd
latter, the molecule–molecule collision frequency is where l0 is the bulk dynamic viscosity, and d and C are
reduced in the presence of walls. Although numerous parameters that are obtained by linear regression of the
efforts have been made to provide expressions for the gas results of the linearized Boltzmann equation for Kramer’s
viscosity as a function of density, the same is not true for problem and verified by the authors with DSMC for
the dependence of the viscosity on the channel dimensions Kn = 0.06.
and, eventually, on the Knudsen number. Beskok and Karniadakis (1999) suggested that a Bo-
The Chapman–Enskog theory of dilute gases (Chapman sanquet-type of expression for the viscosity in the transi-
and Cowling 1970) provides for the hard sphere model the tion regime and conducted numerical computations of flow
following expression for the bulk viscosity in cylinders and channels using the Navier–Stokes formu-
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi lation complemented with a slip boundary condition. They
5 2pkT
l0 ¼ qk; ð1Þ found good agreement of their model with DSMC results
16 m
and with the linearized Boltzmann solution. Supportive
where k is the Boltzmann constant, T is the absolute arguments on the validity of an expression for the effective
temperature, m is the molecular mass, and q is the mass viscosity l0 in the form
density. Considering that the mean thermal speed is given by 1
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi le ¼ l0 ð8Þ
8kT 1 þ aKn
c¼ ð2Þ
pm were presented in that study, where l0 is the bulk viscosity.
Eq. 1 can also be written as They suggested a Knudsen dependence of the rarefaction
5p parameter a and provided an analytical expression for this
l0 ¼ qck dependence based on the free molecular limit using two
32 ð3Þ
free parameters.
ffi 0:49qck
Guo et al. (2007, 2008) proposed a model in the Navier–
This, for a specific gas and fixed temperature, implies a Stokes formulation also, but with a ‘‘geometry’’-dependent
constant value for the viscosity given that q is inversely viscosity. In addition, they extended this concept into the

123
Microfluid Nanofluid
multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann technique using
arguments from Stops (1970) and his formula for the
effective mean free path length in a channel in the transi-
tion regime. Using as argument the analogy between the
mean free path and the dynamic viscosity, an expression
for the effective viscosity as a function of the distance from
the wall was proposed in Guo et al. (2007), which in the
case of flow between two parallel plates at distance H is
given by the equation
  
1  y Hy
le ðyÞ ¼ l0 w þw : ð9Þ
2 k k
In Eq. 9, y is the distance from the wall and the function
w is given by
wðxÞ ¼ 1 þ ðx  1Þex  x2 Ei ðxÞ ð10Þ
with Ei(x) defined as
Z1
Ei ðxÞ ¼ t1 ext dt: ð11Þ
1
The Information Preservation (IP) scheme (Fan and
Shen 1999, 2001) was specifically developed as a
mesoscopic technique to overcome the statistical noise of
direct methods, such as the DSMC, and was applied by
Roohi and Darbandi (2001) to the extension of the Navier–
Stokes slip-flow description into the early transition
regime. Through the use of the IP results, a modified
viscosity coefficient expression was suggested and
introduced in the macroscopic NS description to predict
both the mass flow rate and the velocity profile in 2D
micro- and nanochannel flow processes. However, the
determining factor for the accuracy of shear stress
calculations in the IP scheme is the collision model that
is employed. The IP collision model of Fan and coworkers
(1999, 2001) assumes that the preserved information of
particles is the same after collision. However, the
numerical tests have shown that this basic model cannot
correctly simulate the viscosity and thermal conductivity
of gas flows. Sun and Boyd (2002) suggested a
phenomenological model for the distribution of the
information after collision based on the collision
deflection angle. Results (Roohi and Darbandi 2001)
have shown that the slip velocity is overestimated,
whereas the maximum velocity is underestimated, for
both of the current IP collision models when Kn [ 0.5,
following comparison with the DSMC predictions. This
has also been shown by Cai et al. (2000) for the velocity
prediction of the collision IP model suggested in Fan and
Shen (1999, 2001), while Roohi and Darbandi (2001) also
demonstrate this discrepancy for the collision model of
Sun and Boyd (2002). Although the IP solution predicts
mass flow rate and shear stress close to that of DSMC
with significantly less statistical error, the inclusion of
phenomenological models for the collision information
limits its capability of predicting the correct viscosity
coefficient value in the 0.1 \ Kn \ 0.5 region, and, thus, is
not expected to be suitable for the even wider range of
Knudsen numbers studied in the present study.
Literature shows that DSMC is capable of reproducing
rarefaction effects by comparison to the solution of the
linearized Boltzmann equation (Bird 1994). In this study,
DSMC is used with the goal of investigating the Knudsen
number effect on gas viscosity without resorting to any
adjustment process or phenomenological description of
flow. In fact, the effective viscosity is obtained directly
from the flow field calculations and its shear stress-based
definition. This is an intriguing goal on its own given the
dearth of similar attempts despite the obvious usefulness of
the relationship between viscosity and Knudsen number not
only in vacuum applications and MEMS but also in porous
media science and technology. Once such an effective
viscosity is available, it can be used in phenomenological
models of flow under rarefaction conditions without having
to resort to tedious simulations at the microscopic scale.
2 Effective viscosity using DSMC
The case of pressure driven flow of nitrogen in a narrow slit
is considered in the present study under isothermal, low
speed conditions. The hard sphere model is used as it is
adequate for the isothermal case examined here. The
molecular diameter is 4.17 9 10-10 m, whereas the
molecular mass is 4.65 9 10-26 kg. In most of the calcu-
lations shown here, the inlet-to-outlet pressure ratio is
Pr = 2 and the length-to-width ratio L/H is varied between
15 and 30. Larger L/H ratios could also be investigated but
they would require very large computational times. The
distance H between the two plates is considered to be the
characteristic length in the definition of the Knudsen
number, which was varied by varying the applied pressure
and, hence, the mean free path. Fully diffusive thermal
walls were assumed. Care was taken, so that the usual
approximations involved in the DSMC method were sat-
isfied. Namely, in all cases, the mean free path to cell size
ratio was k/Dxcell [ 3, the time step was kept smaller than
the mean collision time, and sufficient number of mole-
cules per cell ([20) were used. Calculations reported here
were performed on a 200 9 12 grid, with 2 9 2 subcells in
each cell, on a sample 10-5 m long (x) and 6 9 10-7 m
wide (y). Finer grids (200 9 32 and 400 9 22) have been
used to ensure convergence, however without practical
difference (\5% change in the mean value of Kn at
Kn = 0.1). Calculations were terminated and results were
collected when the mean Knudsen number of all cells was
123

constant within 5 significant digits. The inlet–outlet
boundary conditions are similar to those used in Wu and
Tseng (2001). It should be noted that under these condi-
tions, the deviation from the Chapman–Enskog expression
for the viscosity, originating from the space and time dis-
cretization contributions in Eqs. 5 and 6, respectively, is
\2%.
By definition, the shear stress exerted in the x-direction
on a fluid surface of constant y is given by
 0,000004
syx ¼ n mcx cy  mc0x c0y ð12Þ
where n is the number density, c is the molecular velocity
and c0 is the stream velocity. Average values in this
calculation are taken over the molecules within each cell.
Following the definition of the effective viscosity le, the
shear stress is proportional to the strain rate according to
the equation
 
dc0x dc0y
syx ¼ le þ : ð13Þ
dy dx
For constant molecular mass m, which holds for single
component flow, the viscosity can be calculated as follows
cx cy  c0x c0y
le ¼ q dc dc0y
: ð14Þ
dy þ dx
0x
The quantity cx cy can be readily calculated in each cell
and be sampled along with the other macroscopic
quantities of interest. Given the stochastic nature of the
collision step in the DSMC method, some statistical noise
is expected, the magnitude of which is a function of the
simulation parameters (population per cell, time step). To
remedy this, average values of the viscosity over a cross
section of the channel are calculated, so that the variation
of the viscosity with the position along the channel can be
delineated. This variation can be transformed into a
relationship between the viscosity and the Knudsen
number within the same channel through the calculation
of the cross-sectional average value of the gas density.
Repetition of the simulation for different pressure values at
the two ends of the channel will eventually offer the
dependence of the gas viscosity on the Knudsen number
over a wide range of Kn values.
3 Results and discussion
The effect of rarefaction is evident in the results that are
presented in Fig. 1, which displays the variation of the
viscosity of N2 with the Knudsen number at T = 300 K.
Each color represents cross-section-averaged viscosity
estimates along the channel for fixed Kn value at the output
and inlet-to-outlet pressure ratio Pr = 2. It is noteworthy
123
Microfluid Nanofluid
0,000020
0,000018 Symbols: DSMC calc.
-void: Poiseuille type of flow
0,000016 -filled:Couette flow, uwall=1 m/s
Effective viscosity (Pa s)
0,000014
Sutherland with a=2
Chapman with a=1.5
0,000012
Roohi and Darbandi [19]
0,000010
0,000008
0,000006
0,000002
0,000000
0,1 1 10
Knudsen number
Fig. 1 Dependence of gas viscosity (cross-section averaged) on
Knudsen number in the transition regime. Open symbols: present
study (DSMC) for Poiseuille flow. Filled symbols: present study
(DSMC) for Couette flow. Each set represents separate simulation
results in the channel with different end pressure values. Solid line:
Bosanquet approximation with a = 2 and Sutherland’s expression for
the bulk viscosity. Dashed line: Bosanquet approximation with
a = 1.5 and Chapman’s expression for the bulk viscosity. Dotted line:
expression suggested by Roohi and Darbandi (2001) limited to the Kn
range 0.1–0.5
that the viscosity predictions display a quite satisfactory
continuity between successive simulations (corresponding
to different symbols), which implies that end-effects are,
practically, eliminated. The results show that the viscosity
is not constant with Kn and changes by a factor of 25
within the transition regime. Specifically, it takes values
ranging from le = 1.5 9 10-5 Pa s for Kn = 0.1 to
le = 6 9 10-7 Pa s for Kn = 15.
The consequences of this finding are apparent. Any
computational technique that employs the viscosity coef-
ficient as a parameter must account for a Knudsen number
dependence of this quantity (e.g., vacuum applications,
MEMS, and mesoporous media). Given that the tube or
pore size usually varies with position within the system or
the porous medium, so does Kn and, consequently, a local
value of the viscosity must be employed in the
computations.
Figure 1 also provides a comparison of the DSMC vis-
cosity predictions with other formulas or numerical cal-
culations. Sutherland’s formula (Chapman and Cowling
1970) predicts l0 = 1.778 9 10-5 Pa s for N2 at 300 K,
which is the temperature of the simulations, whereas Eq. 1
gives l0 = 1.41 9 10-5 Pa s. Both of these formulas refer
to bulk values of the viscosity, i.e., to Kn ? 0, which is not
the case here as the flow lies clearly in the transition
regime. The expression for the viscosity coefficient that
was suggested by Roohi and Darbandi (2001; Eq. 15) using
IP calculations in the Knudsen range 0.1–0.5, is also
depicted in Fig. 1, with l0 = 1.778 9 10-5 Pa s. The IP
Microfluid Nanofluid
results are similar to the DSMC ones for low Kn (*0.1),
but gradually underestimate the viscosity coefficient for
higher Kn values. Although the IP method offers reduced
statistical errors and computational costs, its limited per-
formance in the lower part of the transition regime is not
encouraging for higher Kn values.
In order to simplify further the utilization of this result
in phenomenological approaches and computations in
MEMS or porous media, it is tempting to investigate
whether a Bosanquet-type of approximation, which is
known to hold with good accuracy (Pollard and Present
1948) for the diffusion coefficient in the transition regime,
reproduces satisfactorily the viscosity dependence on the
Knudsen number. Following the brief review of bulk vis-
cosity expressions that was made in Sect. 1, the viscosity in
the absence of walls (Kn ? 0) can, in general, be
expressed as
l0 ¼ a0 qck ð15Þ
where a0 is a numerical constant, whereas at the free
molecular flow limit (Kn ? ?)
l1 ¼ a1 qcH ð16Þ
with a? a numerical constant for infinitely large k. By
analogy to the diffusion case, the Bosanquet-type of
approximation would read
1 1 1 directly the definition of the viscosity. It also noteworthy
¼ þ : ð17Þ
le l0 l1
Substituting expressions (15) and (16) in Eq. 17, one
gets
1
le ¼ l0 ð18Þ
1 þ aKn
which was also suggested in Beskok and Karniadakis
(1999). Note that the factor a = a0/a? is employed in this
expression to absorb the unknown numerical constants a0
and a? into a single quantity. Using l0 = 1.778 9 10-5
Pa s and the values of le that were calculated in the sim-
ulations of Fig. 1, one can calculate the value of a from
Eq. 18 for each Kn value. Figure 2 shows that the value of
a is not constant but depends on the Kn value, as also noted
in Beskok and Karniadakis (1999). However, this depen-
dence is rather weak over the majority of the transition
regime, suggesting an ‘‘effective’’ value close to 2. In fact,
if one uses this value in the Bosanquet expression (18), the
Kn-dependence of the viscosity follows the solid line of
Fig. 1, which is seen to reproduce quite satisfactorily the
DSMC results. Using Eq. 5 results in l0 = 1.41 9 10-5
Pa s, which, in turn, leads to a value of a = 1.5. This
option provides also good approximations to the calculated
viscosity except for the lower range of Kn values, as shown
in Fig. 1.
4
DSMC results
L/H=20
3
Bosanquet parameter, a
2
1
0
1 10
Knudsen number
Fig. 2 Variation of factor a with the Knudsen number as results from
DSMC calculations in a channel. Each set represents separate
simulation results in the channel with different end pressure values
A similar value (a = 2.2) was suggested by Beskok and
Karniadakis (1999) in their effort to match their numerical
results for the mass flow rate in a channel with the corre-
sponding DSMC results. It must be stressed though that the
factor a is not an adjustable parameter in the present study.
Its value was determined from a post-process calculation
following DSMC simulation of flow in a channel and using
that the calculated viscosity approaches its bulk value for
Kn \ 10-3, as expected, whereas for Kn [ 10, it takes a
value that is very close to the prediction of Eq. 16 with
a? = 1/3. It is, also, useful to note that the same value of a
was obtained for all length-to-width ratios examined in the
present study (L/H = 15–30). Smaller L/H values would
lead to strong end effects whereas larger values would
require very large computational times.
Figure 3 shows the effective viscosity, non-dimension-
alized with its bulk value, as a function of the dimen-
sionless distance from the wall, y/H. Comparison is made
between the DSMC results using l0 = 1.778 9 10-5 and
the predictions of Eq. 9 for Kn = 0.128. Although the
presence of statistical noise is apparent in the DSMC
results, a relatively good agreement is noted with the
effective viscosity values that were proposed by Guo et al.
(2007). Taking into account that the two approaches are
entirely different from each other, this agreement is quite
encouraging as it contributes significantly to the quantifi-
cation of the viscosity variation within the Knudsen layer.
An investigation of the effect of the molecule-wall
collision law on the validity of the Bosanquet approxima-
tion to the effective viscosity dependence on the Knudsen
number is discussed next. Specifically, the simulation of
rarefied flow in the tube was repeated using different values
123

1,3
Dimensionless effective viscosity, µ/µ0
1,2 DSMC results
1,1
Eq. (9)
1,0
0,9
0,8
0,7
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,0 0,1
Dimensionless distance from the wall, y/H
Fig. 3 Dependence of effective viscosity, rendered dimensionless
using the bulk value as reference, on the distance from the wall.
Comparison between the predictions of Eq. 9 and DSMC results using
l0 = 1.778 9 10-5 Pa s for Kn = 0.128
of the energy and momentum accommodation coefficients,
which translates to using different weighting factors for
purely diffuse and purely specular collisions with the wall.
In all cases, the viscosity values were found to follow
exactly the same dependence on the Knudsen number as in
the diffuse reflection case. The validity of the Bosanquet
expression was also tested for the Couette type of flow in a
straight tube. Different values for the velocity of the upper
wall were used in the computations, while the lower wall
was kept fixed. The effective viscosity results for the
Couette flow case with wall velocity 1 m/s are shown as
filled symbols in Fig. 1 to make the distinction from the
fixed wall (‘‘Poiseuille’’ type of flow) case. Notice that the
calculated viscosity values practically coincide with the
ones in the fixed wall case for several values of the
Knudsen number at the tube outlet. This finding is very
important as it supports further the validity of the simpli-
fied expression for the Kn dependence of the viscosity that
is suggested in the present study in different flow situations
with different accommodation coefficient at the wall.
4 Conclusions
The dependence of gas viscosity on the Knudsen number in
a long straight channel under isothermal, low speed flow
conditions is investigated through the employment of the
DSMC technique over a wide range of Kn values. Rather
than resorting to any other phenomenological description of
the flow process, the calculated density and velocity profiles
were used for the determination of the local shear stress and,
eventually, of the local effective viscosity. Assuming that
the gas flow is not far from a local equilibrium state, it was
123
Microfluid Nanofluid
found that a Bosanquet-type of approximation describes
quite satisfactorily the Kn-dependence of the viscosity over
the entire range of Kn values investigated here (0.1–10),
covering, practically, the entire transition regime. The Bo-
sanquet parameter was calculated to equal 2, which is quite
similar to the value suggested independently in a previous
study (Beskok and Karniadakis 1999) that treated it as an
adjustable parameter with the goal to optimize matching
between the predictions of independent flow calculations
and those of DSMC calculations.
The simplified description of the dependence of gas
viscosity on the Knudsen number through a Bosanquet-
type of approximation with a specific parameter value
0,2 0,3
lends itself to a broad utilization in rarefied flow calcula-
tions in MEMS and in porous media. Further study is
needed though to estimate potential effects of the channel
aspect ratio on the value of the Bosanquet parameter for a
more complete quantification of the Kn-dependence of the
gas viscosity in the transition regime.
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