Computer simulation of slightly rarefied gas flows driven by significant temperature variations and their continuum limit

TL;DR

This paper develops a finite-volume solver for simulating slightly rarefied gas flows with significant temperature variations, bridging kinetic theory and continuum fluid dynamics, and demonstrates its application through numerical examples.

Contribution

It introduces a novel finite-volume solver based on OpenFOAM for simulating nonisothermal rarefied gas flows with finite Reynolds numbers.

Findings

Validated the solver with numerical examples of temperature-driven flows.

Analyzed forces on heated bodies in rarefied gas conditions.

Abstract

A rigorous asymptotic analysis of the Boltzmann equation for small Knudsen numbers leads, in the general case, to more complicated sets of differential equations than widely used to describe the behavior of gas in terms of classical fluid dynamics. The present paper deals with such one that is valid for significant temperature variations and finite Reynolds numbers at the same time (slow nonisothermal flow equations). A finite-volume solver developed on the open-source CFD platform OpenFOAM is proposed for computer simulation of a slightly rarefied gas in an arbitrary geometry. Typical temperature driven flows are considered as numerical examples. A force acting on uniformly heated bodies is studied as well.