End corrections for rarefied gas flows through circular tubes of finite length

Abstract

A method to take into account the influence of the inlet/outlet ends on rarefied gas flows through moderately long capillaries proposed previously [Vacuum 97, 26 (2013)] is applied to gas flows through circular tubes. The method is based on the concept of effective tube length, representing a sum of its real length and an increment. To calculate the length increment, a flow field near the inlet/outlet of tube is calculated on the basis of the linearized kinetic equation. It is shown that the value of the length increment is independent of the tube length, but depends only on the rarefaction parameter so that it can be used to obtain accurate predictions of the mass flow rate and the axial pressure distribution without great computational effort. Comparisons with results obtained by considering the complete flow domain have shown the efficiency of the end correction concept. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.