Burnett simulations of gas flow and heat transfer in microchannels

In micro- and nanoscale gas flows, the flow falls into the transition flow regime. There are not enough molecule collisions and the gas deviates from the equilibrium. The Navier-Stokes equations fail to describe the gas flow in this regime. The direct simulation Monte Carlo method converges slowly and requires lots of computational time. As a result, the high-order Burnett equations are used to study the gas flow and heat transfer characteristics in micro- and nanoscale gas flows in this paper. The Burnett equations are first reviewed, and the augmented Burnett equations with high-order slip boundary conditions are then used to model the gas flow and heat transfer in Couette and Poiseuille flows in the transition regime. © 2009 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH.