Investigation of rarefied gas flow in microchannels of non-uniform cross

section
Vadiraj Hemadri, Vijay V. Varade, Amit Agrawal, and U. V. Bhandarkar

Citation: Physics of Fluids 28, 022007 (2016); doi: 10.1063/1.4942183

View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4942183
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/phf/28/2
Published by the American Institute of Physics

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 PHYSICS OF FLUIDS 28, 022007 (2016)

Investigation of rarefied gas flow in microchannels

of non-uniform cross section
Vadiraj Hemadri,1 Vijay V. Varade,2 Amit Agrawal,1 and U. V. Bhandarkar1
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai,
Mumbai 400076, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, HCT-Sharjah Men’s College, Sharjah, UAE
(Received 18 October 2015; accepted 5 February 2016; published online 24 February 2016)

Study of rarefied gas flow in converging and diverging cross sections is crucial
to the development of micro-nozzles and micro-thrusters. In other practical cases
too, a microchannel may not always be straight and may include diverging and
converging sections in the flow path. In this context, isothermal rarefied gas flow
in microchannels of longitudinally varying cross section is studied experimentally
in this work. The primary objective is to investigate the existence of Knudsen
minimum in microchannels of varying cross sections. The effect of geometrical
cross section and fluid properties on the Knudsen minimum are also investigated
by performing experiments on three divergence angles (4◦, 8◦, and 12◦) and three
different gases (argon, nitrogen, and oxygen) to prove the robustness of the result.
The Knudsen minimum, which is one of the characteristic features of rarefied flows,
is experimentally observed for the first time in a microchannel of varying cross
section. The position of the Knudsen minimum (at K n ≈ 1) is seen to depend only
weakly on the divergence angle and fluid properties. C 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4942183]

INTRODUCTION
Fluid flow in microchannels has been investigated extensively in the past decade, for the most
part, due to its various applications in MEMS devices. These devices are pertinent to health indus-
try, aerospace, defense, and electronic industries. The Knudsen number (Kn), which is the ratio of
mean free path of the gas to the characteristic length scale, is used to classify the flow of gas into
different regimes (Agrawal, 2011 and Colin et al., 2004). In the slip flow regime (0.001 < Kn < 0.1)
and the transition regime (0.1 < Kn < 10), the validity of the continuum assumption and the appli-
cability of the Navier-Stokes equations (that contain only first order accurate terms in Knudsen
number) become questionable (Singh and Agrawal, 2014). Therefore, there exists a need to invoke
higher order continuum models to accurately describe the flow in these regimes or to adopt molec-
ular based models (Agarwal et al., 2001; Singh et al., 2014a; and Singh et al., 2014b). An alter-
native approach adopted by some authors (Maurer et al., 2003; Ewart et al., 2006; Dongari et al.,
2007; and Dongari and Agrawal, 2012) is to employ a slip boundary condition along with the
conventional Navier-Stokes equations. These slip models can be of either first order or second order
and involve coefficients that need to be determined either experimentally (Agrawal and Prabhu,
2008) or from the numerical solution of the kinetic equation (Sharipov and Seleznev, 1998). How-
ever, the use of slip boundary condition has been limited to Kn ∼ 0.8 as the empirical coefficients
tend to be drastically affected by experimental uncertainties at higher Knudsen numbers.
“Knudsen minimum” is a phenomenon that is characteristic to rarefied gas flows. It was first
reported in the experiments of Knudsen (1909), who observed that the volumetric flow rate exhibits
a minimum with increase in rarefaction. Thereafter, it has been observed in experiments and simu-
lations by other authors (Dong, 1956 and Ewart et al., 2007) with rarefied gas flows in passages of
uniform cross section. The Knudsen minimum was encountered in each of these experiments and
found to exist between Knudsen numbers 0.8 and 1 for all the cases investigated therein. Pollard and
Present (1948) conducted an analytical study of gaseous self-diffusion in long capillary tubes. They

1070-6631/2016/28(2)/022007/10/$30.00 28, 022007-1 © 2016 AIP Publishing LLC

022007-2 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

found that the diffusion coefficient increases rapidly with an increase in rarefaction. Their results
also confirmed the existence of Knudsen minimum in straight capillaries. They, however, proposed
that the Knudsen minimum should not occur in irregular capillaries and porous media. Tison (1993)
experimentally studied the flow of gases through metal capillary tubes of uniform cross section
and crimped capillaries. He reported the existence of minimum in capillaries of uniform cross
section but the Knudsen minimum was not observed in crimped capillaries, lending some support
to the analysis of Pollard and Present (1948). There are a few theoretical calculations that analyzed
flow of rarefied gases through microchannel (Cercignani and Daneri, 1963; Cercignani and Serna-
giotto, 1966; Dongari et al., 2007; Gu and Emerson, 2009; Graur and Sharipov, 2009; Dongari and
Agrawal, 2012; Dadzie and Brenner, 2012; and Singh et al., 2014b). These calculations are again
for uniform cross section passage and suggest existence of Knudsen minimum. In this work, experi-
mental investigation on Knudsen minimum in microchannel with varying cross section is presented.
Compared to flow in uniform cross section passages, there are limited data available on rarefied
flow through varying cross section. Sharipov and Bertoldo (2005) computationally determined the
mass flow rate of rarefied gas flowing through a tube of gradually varying radius for isothermal and
non-isothermal cases. Graur and Ho (2014) calculated the mass flow rate in rectangular microchan-
nels of variable cross section. In both these studies, Knudsen minimum was observed between
0.1 < δ m < 1.5. Varade et al. (2014a) and Varade et al. (2014b) studied the effect of sudden expan-
sion and contraction in rarefied flows and noted that flow separation was absent near the expan-
sion/contraction junction in the slip regime. Varade et al. (2015a) and Varade et al. (2015b) studied
rarefied gas flow in diverging/converging microchannel in the continuum and early slip regime
(0.0005 < Kn < 0.1) and provided an empirical correlation for mass flow rate and Poiseuille num-
ber. Recently, Graur et al. (2014) performed experiments on converging/diverging microchannels
and reported that the pressure drop was significantly higher when the microchannel was perfused in
diverging orientation. They also proposed that this discrepancy should disappear in the continuum
and free molecular regimes.
All these experimental studies are limited to the slip regime with Knudsen number less than
0.3. In microchannels of varying cross sections, there has been no attempt to experimentally inves-
tigate the existence of the Knudsen minimum which is usually reported to lie between Knudsen
number 0.7 and 1 for geometries with uniform cross section. The present study focuses on obtaining
experimental data in diverging microchannels across a wide range of Kn covering the slip regime
and extending into the transitional regime. The aim is to examine any effect that the geometrical
cross section may have on the existence and position of the Knudsen minimum.

EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
Figure 1 shows the schematic of the experimental setup designed to conduct measurements in
the higher end of the slip regime and early part of the transition regime (0.07 < Knm < 1.1) by
using a constant-volume “pressure-driven” system. This procedure uses the pressure variation in
the reservoir to estimate the mass flow rate in the test section, under quasi-steady state conditions.
Many authors have adopted the constant-volume method and a detailed discussion on it can be
found in the work of Ewart et al. (2007), Pitakarnnop et al. (2009), and Perrier et al. (2011),
amongst others. The test section is connected between two reservoirs of volumes 1.3 × 10−3 m3 and
4.7 × 10−3 m3. (The maximum uncertainty in the volume is ±1% associated with the volume of the
fittings and connectors.) The volume of the outlet tank is about 3.6 times higher than that of the inlet
tank. Therefore, when the pressure in the inlet tank is changed by 3.6%, the corresponding change
in pressure of the outlet tank is 1%. High precision and high accuracy capacitance manometers
(MKS Baratron) (ranges: 1, 10, and 100 mbar; accuracy ±0.25%) are used for pressure measure-
ments at four different locations as shown in Figure 1. The inlet and outlet reservoir tanks can be
either connected to the high pressure gas cylinder or the vacuum pumping system, by operating a set
of four valves (A, B, C, or D). After imposing the desired pressure in both the reservoirs, these four
valves are closed and valve E is opened, resulting in gas flow in the test section on the account of
pressure difference in the reservoirs.
022007-3 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

FIG. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup.

The microchannels used in the experiments were fabricated in-house on single-side polished,
p-type, 2 in. silicon wafer. Since the wafers are of ⟨100⟩ orientation, wet etching the wafer results
in channels of trapezoidal cross section. The top of the microchannel is covered with an optically
smooth quartz plate (Singh et al., 2009). The schematic of the microchannel, highlighting the
diverging cross section, is shown in Figure 2. Three different microchannels of different divergence
angles were tested. The relevant dimensions along with the uncertainties are tabulated in Table I.
The inlet and outlet temperatures of the reservoir of the microchannel were measured with
K-type thermocouples. The temperature variation for any particular run was within 0.2 ◦C. Typi-
cal temperature variation for a single run is shown in Figure 3. It is seen that both the inlet and

FIG. 2. Schematic of the cross section and geometry of the microchannel.

022007-4 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

TABLE I. Dimensional details of the microchannel.

Parameter Microchannel 1 Microchannel 2 Microchannel 3 Microchannel 4 Uncertainty (in units) Unit

Smaller width (w s ) 1143 276 291 291 ±1 µm

Larger width (w L ) 1143 1615 3077 4480 ±1 µm
Length (L) 20 × 103 20 × 103 20 × 103 20 × 103 ±100 µm
Depth (H ) 103 100 95 78 ±0.5 µm
Full angle (θ) 0 4 8 12 ±0.5 deg

outlet temperatures are the same, within their prescribed accuracy of ±0.2 ◦C. The uncertainty in
the measured mass flow rate is the total of the uncertainties due to non-isothermal effects (±2%),
volume of tank (±1%), and the standard deviation of the coefficient of linear fit of pressure measure-
ments (< ±1%). The leakage is estimated as detailed in the work of Demsis et al. (2010). Thus, the
uncertainty in the mass flow rate is evaluated as ±4%.
The mean Knudsen number Knm is calculated as
√
µ πRT/2
Knm = , (1)
Pm H
where Pm is the mean of the inlet and outlet pressures, µ is the gas viscosity, T is the absolute
temperature, H is the depth (constant throughout the length of the microchannel), and R is the
specific gas constant. The mean rarefaction parameter (δ m ) is the inverse of mean Knudsen number
and is defined as
√
π 1
δm = . (2)
2 K nm
The experimental parameters are summarized in Table II.
The pressure ratio (Π ) in the present set of experiments is relatively large (ranging from 7 to
10). Therefore, to compare the present results with the data available in literature for flows with
pressure ratios close to unity, the approach adopted in the work of Sharipov (1999) and Ewart et al.
(2007) is followed, and the mass flow rate is non-dimensionalized as
√
L 2RT
G= 2 ṁ, (3)
H w(Pin − Pout)

FIG. 3. Typical variation of inlet and outlet temperatures for a single run. Note that only one data point to every 100 points
is shown for the purpose of clarity.
022007-5 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

TABLE II. Range of experimental parameters investigated.

Gas Quantity Min Max

Nitrogen ṁ (kg/s) 1.95 × 10−10 7.68 × 10−9

P m (Pa) 36.4 1024
Kn m 0.07 1.1
δm 0.46 12.8
Π 7 10
Argon ṁ (kg/s) 3.04 × 10−10 7.76 × 10−9
P m (Pa) 68.1 940
Kn m 0.07 0.968
δm 0.92 12.64
Π 6 10
Oxygen ṁ (kg/s) 2.82 × 10−10 6.12 × 10−9
P m (Pa) 73.9 877
Kn m 0.084 0.996
δm 10.56 0.89
Π 7 10

where ṁ is the mass flow rate, L is the length, w is the mean width of the microchannel, obtained by
taking the mean width at inlet and outlet of the microchannel (i.e., (wi + wo )/2) and Pin and Pout are
the inlet and outlet pressures, respectively. This non-dimensionalized mass flow rate is independent
of local rarefaction and depends only on the inlet and outlet pressures.

RESULTS
The experimental setup was validated by performing experiments on a microchannel of uni-
form cross section (for dimensions, see microchannel 1 in Table I) and comparing the results
with the data available in the literature. The measurements were conducted with three different
gases: argon, nitrogen, and oxygen. The non-dimensionalized mass flow rate obtained by Eq. (3) is
compared against the experimental data (with nitrogen as the working fluid) of Ewart et al. (2007)
and the results are plotted in Figure 4. The present experimental results for the three gases are
seen to collapse to a single curve. A quantitative agreement is found between the present results

FIG. 4. Comparison of non-dimensional mass flow rate for the three different gases in uniform cross section channel.
022007-6 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

and that of Ewart et al. (2007), with the Knudsen minima being clearly observed with all the three
different gases. It is noted that although the experiments of Ewart et al. (2007) were performed
on microchannels of rectangular cross section, and the present experiments were carried out on
microchannels of trapezoidal cross section, the aspect ratios (ARs) of the test sections employed in
these measurements are small (H/w < 0.1). This implies that the influence of the lateral walls on
the ensuing flow is negligible, which accounts for the quantitative agreement between the two sets
of measurements. This observation can be further verified by comparing the experimental results
with the theoretical results for flow between two infinite parallel plates. The numerical solution
to the BGK model obtained by Loyalka (1975) and the results obtained by variational approach
by Cercignani and Pagani (1966) are included in Figure 4 for comparison. These results are also
seen to agree favorably with the experiments, at least for δ m > 0.7. For δ m < 0.7, the theoretical
results are seen to diverge from the experimental data. This suggests that the influence of the lateral
wall starts becoming important for δ m < 0.7, and therefore, the results obtained for parallel plates
fail to predict the mass flow rate in rectangular/trapezoidal microchannels accurately. Sharipov
(1999) numerically studied the flow in a rectangular microchannel for different aspect ratios (H/w)
of the cross section and has also reported the increasing effect of lateral walls with increase in
rarefaction.
These measurements show that the present experimental setup is capable of identifying Knud-
sen minimum, if one such exists. These results also validate the setup for high Kn flow measure-
ments and form the baseline for investigating the Knudsen minimum in varying cross section
microchannels.
Figure 5 shows the non-dimensional mass flow rate for diverging microchannel with three
different divergence angles (4◦, 8◦, and 12◦) with nitrogen as the working fluid. It is seen that the
Knudsen minimum is observed for all the microchannels and is located around the same value
of δ m . To the best of our knowledge, the existence of Knudsen minimum is observed here for
the first time in microchannels of varying cross section. The minimum in mass flow rate is seen
to shift down on decreasing the divergence angle, with the 4◦ microchannel exhibiting the lowest
reduced mass flow rate. This downward shift in the mass flow rate is not very surprising when
compared with the theoretical solution of Sharipov (1999) for a rectangular microchannel of uni-
form cross section (plotted as distinctive lines in Figure 5, which correspond to different aspect ra-
tios). Although a direct comparison with the present experimental data may seem unwarranted (due
to the different shapes of cross section in the two studies), it does throw light on some qualitative as-
pects of the present results. A downward shift in the non-dimensional mass flow rate was observed

FIG. 5. Comparison of non-dimensional mass flow rates between straight and diverging channels. The lines represent the
theoretical results of Sharipov (1999) for different aspect ratios (AR).
022007-7 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

FIG. 6. Variation of non-dimensional mass flow rate with rarefaction parameter δ m for different gases with (a) 8◦ microchan-
nel and (b) 12◦ microchannel.

in the theoretical results with increasing aspect ratio. The present experimental data lie between
the two extreme conditions of aspect ratios employed in the theoretical study, i.e., parallel plate
solution (w >> H) and flow in a square channel (w = H). Although the aspect ratio of the diverging
microchannels is constantly changing along the length, it can be conceived as flow in a uniform
cross section microchannel with a constant “effective aspect ratio.” The shift in the non-dimensional
mass flow rate with divergence angle can then be attributed to changes in the “effective aspect ratio.”
The flow behavior suggests that the effective aspect ratio reduces with increase in divergence angle
and approaches a parallel plate solution for large divergence angles.
Méolans et al. (2012) have also shown that when the aspect ratio (H/w) of the microchannel is
less than 0.1, the mass flow rate through this channel differs from the mass flow rate of the infinitely
large channel only by 5%. For the diverging microchannels used in the present work, this ratio
is around 0.2–0.3 at the inlet and gradually decreases along the length of the channel. This ratio
remains greater than 0.1 (and hence the lateral wall influence is not negligible) for 55%, 25%, and
13% of the total length of 4◦, 8◦, and 12◦ channels, respectively. This means that the lateral wall
influence is the highest for 4◦ channel and it decreases with increasing divergence angle. Therefore,
the deviation from a parallel plate solution is the highest for the 4◦ channel and decreases for 8◦ and
12◦ channels.
A few observations on the effect of gas on the Knudsen minimum can also be made. It is seen
from Figure 6 that the value of Gmin is the lowest for the case of argon, followed by oxygen and
nitrogen, for both 8◦ and 12◦ microchannels. It is surprising to see that the effect of the gas species
which is not very prominent in constant cross section microchannel (Figure 4) is seen to become
noticeable with increase in diverging angle.

DISCUSSION
The Knudsen minimum can be attributed as the result of two opposite mechanisms (Pollard
and Present, 1948 and Veltzke and Thöming, 2012). The total mass flow rate of the gas due to
an imposed pressure gradient can be modeled as a superimposition of convection and molecular
diffusion. At higher pressures, the convection part is dominant and the mass flow rate associated
with molecular diffusion is not very significant. As the gas becomes rarefied, the friction factor
increases and hence the convection decreases. With increasing rarefaction, after a critical value is
reached, the diffusion component increases at a higher rate as compared to the rate of reduction of
the convection component. This leads to a minimum in the mass flow rate.
022007-8 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

Another viewpoint is that (Gu and Emerson, 2009) as the rarefaction increases, the centerline
velocity decreases and the slip velocity increases. Initially, the rate of decrease in centerline velocity
is greater than the rate of increase in slip velocity. Hence, there is a reduction in the average velocity
of the flow. At a certain degree of rarefaction, the rate of increase in slip velocity overtakes the rate
of decrease in centerline velocity leading to a minimum in the mass flow rate. It should be noted that
this minimum in mass/volume flow rate is observed only when normalization is applied, while the
dimensional flow rate decreases monotonically with increase in rarefaction.
The authors are not aware of any experimental data on Knudsen minimum in the context of
microchannels with non-uniform cross section. As already mentioned, Pollard and Present (1948)
predicted that the Knudsen minimum should not occur in irregular capillaries and porous media, as
in such cases the mean free path cannot always be of the order of the channel width. According to
those authors, there may be portions of the channel where the actual width is smaller than the mean
width, which may affect the position of the Knudsen minimum or even its existence. This seems
to be the prevailing view in the literature (Tison, 1993). However, our measurements do not lend
support to this hypothesis as the Knudsen minimum is observed in all the cases and its position is
seen to be unaffected by the divergence angle.
The value of the rarefaction parameter δ m and the non-dimensional mass flow rate correspond-
ing to the Knudsen minimum for the present experiments are tabulated in Table III. Interestingly,
the position of the minimum (the rarefaction parameter at which the minimum is observed) is
largely independent of the gas. Although some variation in δ m is observed for different gases, it
should be noted that the variation is within the resolution of the rarefaction parameter. In essence,
we would like to remark that the Knudsen minimum is centered around δ m ∼ 1 for all divergence
angles and all gases, similar to the observations made in uniform cross section microchannels in
other studies. There seems to be a dependence of the mass flow rate of the gas on the molecular
weight, with the gas with lower molecular weight having a higher mass flow rate. The reverse was
found to be true by Perrier et al. (2011), who reported higher reduced mass flow rate for gases with
higher molecular weight. In the present experiments, the variation due to different gases is more
pronounced in the 12◦ microchannel (8%; Figure 6(b)) as compared to the 8◦ microchannel (5%;
Figure 6(a)), while it is absent in the constant cross section microchannel (Figure 4). This suggests
change in flow behaviour between uniform and varying cross section cases since the uncertainties
in all these experiments are of the same order. However, the range of molecular weight of the gas
(28–40) covered in these measurements is relatively small. Further careful measurements need to be
made, covering a larger range of molecular weights of gases, to understand the effect of molecular
weight of the gas species on the flow. Also, the reason for the effect of gas being more pronounced
in non-uniform cross section microchannels needs to be better understood.

TABLE III. Comparison of position and value of Knudsen minima for

different cases.

Angle Gas δm Gmin Remarks

Ar 1.21 1.54 Value of Gmin higher than

0◦ N2 1.29 1.53 diverging microchannels
O2 1.23 1.57

4◦ N2 1.17 1.1 Gmin is the lowest amongst the

present geometries investigated

Ar 1.10 1.23 Knudsen minimum is observed

8◦ N2 1.18 1.28 around δ m = 1 for all the gases
O2 1.19 1.25 and microchannels considered

Ar 1.00 1.21 Gmin is seen to depend weakly on

12◦ N2 1.02 1.30 the molecular weight of gas for
O2 1.22 1.27 both 8◦ and 12◦ microchannels
022007-9 Hemadri et al. Phys. Fluids 28, 022007 (2016)

CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the existence of Knudsen minimum was investigated by studying rarefied gas
flow through diverging microchannels with three different divergence angles and three different
gases. The results show that the Knudsen minimum exists even in the case of varying cross section
microchannels. This is the first time that the phenomenon is observed in the context of microchan-
nel with non-uniform cross section. The value of rarefaction parameter at which the minimum
occurs is the same for all the divergence angles and found to occur around δ ∼ 1 if the rarefaction
parameter is evaluated at the mean pressure. This is consistent with the results obtained in the past
for microchannels of uniform cross sections. A weak dependence of reduced mass flow rate with
molecular weight is observed, with the gas having a lower molecular weight exhibiting a higher
mass flow rate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to Vijay Duryodhan for fabricating the microchannels. The microchannels were
fabricated in CEN, funded by Department of Information Technology. This work is funded by the
Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi.

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