Driving mechanism of thermal transpiration pump with porous material.

The behavior of the rarefied gas in the thermal transpiration pump with the porous material is investigated numerically by the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. The mass flux achieved by the pump is analyzed for a wide range of Knudsen numbers and ratios of the pore length to the pore diameter. The results show that the thermal edge flows around the ends of the pore play an essential role in determining the maximum performance. The effect of the thermal edge flow leads to a qualitative difference in the driving mechanism from a similar thermal transpiration pump by Knudsen. The mass flow takes a maximum value at a considerably large Knudsen number when the pore length is much larger than the pore diameter. The numerical tests show that a larger mass flux is possible when the edge flow is suppressed. The mass flux is investigated for several values of accommodation coefficient and complex pore geometries. The present results show that only the latter leads to the reduction in the mass flux. The compression ratio, including the performance curve of the pump, is also analyzed for several cases. The results show that the small accommodation coefficient decreases the compression ratio of the pump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]