Flow characteristics of supersonic gas passing through a circular micro-channel under different inflow conditions

Gas flow in a micro-channel usually has a high Knudsen number. The predominant predictive tool for such a microflow is the direct simulation Monte Carlo(DSMC) method, which is used in this paper to investigate primary flow properties of supersonic gas in a circular micro-channel for different inflow conditions, such as free stream at different altitudes, with different incoming Mach numbers, and with different angles of attack. Simulation results indicate that the altitude and free stream incoming Mach number have a significant effect on the whole micro-channel flow field, whereas the angle of attack mainly affects the entrance part of micro-channel flow field. The fundamental mechanism behind the simulation results is also presented. With the increase of altitude, thr free stream would be partly prevented from entering into micro-channel.Meanwhile, the gas flow in micro-channel is decelerated, and the increase in the angle of attack also decelerates the gas flow. In contrast, gas flow in micro-channel is accelerated as free stream incoming Mach number increases. A noteworthy finding is that the rarefaction effects can become very dominant when the free stream incoming Mach number is low. In other words, a free stream with a larger incoming velocity is able to reduce the influence of the rarefaction effects on gas flow in the micro-channel.