Heat transfer characteristics of gaseous flows in microtube with constant heat flux

Heat transfer characteristics of gaseous flows in a microtube with constant heat flux whose value is positive or negative are investigated on two-dimensional compressible laminar flow for no-slip regime. The numerical methodology is based on the Arbitrary–Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) method. The computations are performed for tubes with constant heat flux ranging from −10⁴ to 10⁴ W m⁻². The tube diameter ranges from 10 to 100 μm and the aspect ratio of the length and diameter is 200. The stagnation pressure, p_stg is chosen in such away that the Mach number at the exit ranges from 0.1 to 0.7. The outlet pressure is fixed at the atmosphere. The wall and bulk temperatures in microtubes with positive heat flux are compared with those of negative heat flux case and also compared with those of the incompressible flow in a conventional sized tube. In the case of fast flow, temperature profiles normalized by heat flux have different trends whether heat flux is positive or negative. A correlation for the prediction of the wall temperature of the gaseous flow in the microtube is proposed. Supplementary runs with slip boundary conditions for the case of D = 10 μm conducted and rarefaction effect is discussed. With increasing Ma number, the compressibility effect is more dominant and the rarefaction effect is relative insignificant where Kn number is less than Kn = 0.0096. And, the magnitudes of viscous dissipation term and compressibility term are investigated along the tube length.