In this paper, both DSMC and Navier-Stokes computational approaches were applied to study micronozzle flow. The effects of inlet condition, wall boundary condition, Reynolds number, micronozzle geometry and Knudsen number on the micronozzle flow field and propulsion performance were studied in detail. It is found that within the Knudsen number range under consideration, both the methods work to predict flow characteristics inside micronozzles. The continuum method with slip boundary conditions has shown good performance in simulating the formation of a boundary layer inside the nozzle. However, in the nozzle exit lip region, the DSMC method is better due to gas rapid expansion. It is found that with decreasing the inlet pressure, the difference between the continuum model and DSMC results increases due to the enhanced rarefaction effect. The coefficient of discharge and the thrust efficiency increase with increasing the Reynolds number. Thrust is almost proportional to the nozzle width. With dimension enlarged, the nozzle performance becomes better while the rarefaction effects would be somewhat weakened.
Minghou Liu Xianfeng Zhang Genxuan Zhang Yiliang Chen
This paper studied a concept of micromixer with a synthetic jet placed at the bottom of a rectangular channel. Due to periodic ejections from and suctions into the channel, the fluids are mixed effectively. To study the effects of the inlet velocity, the jet intensity and frequency, and the jet location on the mixing efficiency, 3-D numerical simulations of the micromixer have been carried out. It has been found that when the jet intensity and the frequency are fixed, the mixing efficiency increases when Re 〈 50, and decreases when Re 〉 50 with the best mixing efficiency achieved at Re = 50. When the ratio of the jet velocity magnitude to the inlet velocity is taken as 10 and the jet frequency is 100 Hz, the mixing index reaches the highest value. It has also been found that to get better mixing efficiency, the orifice of the synthetic jet should be asymmetrically located away from the channel＇s centerline.
