Search Results (5)

The Knudsen pump, known as a thermal transpiration membrane, is an air inducer that has been mostly studied for small-scale power generation devices. It is a porous medium that does not require any mechanically moving component, but rather uses the temperature gradient across two surfaces of the membrane to induce air from the colder side to the hotter side. If the temperature on the colder side of the membrane is reduced by a thermal guard, the pumping performance of the membrane seems to be improved. Therefore, the membrane integrating with TPMS structures as thermal guards for both experiment and simulation were conducted in this study. The results of flow rate and temperature distribution on the membrane surface were compared. Three characteristic parameters of the membrane, i.e., area factor, pore radius and permeability, were found and can be used in an equation to estimate the air flow rate through the membrane. Diamond was found to be the highest flow improvement while Primitive was the lowest flow improvement. The simulation results with varying %RD also supported that the contact area between the TPMS structure and the membrane inlet surface made Diamond conduct more heat out from the membrane surface than other TPMS structures. Full article

This paper reports on a bidirectional Knudsen pump (KP) with a 3D-printed thermal management platform; the pump is intended principally for microscale gas chromatography applications. Knudsen pumps utilize thermal transpiration, where non-viscous flow is created against a temperature gradient; no moving parts are necessary. Here, a specialized design leverages 3D direct metal laser sintering and provides thermal management that minimizes loss from a joule heater located on the outlet side of KP, while maintaining convective cooling on the inlet side. The 3D-KP design is integrative and compact, and is specifically intended to simplify assembly. The 3D-KP pumping area is ≈1.1 cm²; with the integrated heat sink, the structure has a footprint of 64.2 × 64.2 mm². Using mixed cellulose ester (MCE) membranes with a 25 nm average pore diameter and 525 μm total membrane thickness as the pumping media, the 3D-KP achieves a maximum flow rate of 0.39 sccm and blocking pressure of 818.2 Pa at 2 W input power. The operating temperature is 72.2 °C at ambient room temperature. In addition to MCE membranes, anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes are evaluated as the pumping media; these AAO membranes can accommodate higher operating temperatures than MCE membranes. The 3D-KP with AAO membranes with 0.2 μm average pore diameter and 531 μm total membrane thickness achieves a maximum flow rate of 0.75 sccm and blocking pressure of 496.1 Pa at 9.8 W at an operating temperature of 191.2 °C. Full article

In Knudsen pumps with geometric configuration of rectangle, gas flows are induced by temperature gradients along channel walls. In this paper, the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is used to investigate numerically the flow characteristics of H₂–N₂ mixtures in the Knudsen pump. The variable soft sphere (VSS) model is applied to depict molecular diffusion in the gas mixtures, and the results obtained are compared with those calculated from a variable hard sphere (VHS) model. It is demonstrated that pressure is crucial to affecting the variation of gas flow pattern, but the gas concentration in H₂–N₂ mixtures and the collision model do not change the flow pattern significantly. On the other hand, the velocity of H₂ is larger than that of N₂. The velocities of H₂ and N₂ increase if the concentration of H₂ rises in the gas mixtures. The results of velocity and mass flow rate obtained from VSS and VHS models are different. Finally, a linear relation between the decrease of mass flow rate and the increase of H₂ concentration is proposed to predict the mass flow rate in H₂–N₂ mixtures. Full article

The manufacturing process and architecture of three Knudsen type micropumps are discussed and the associated flow performance characteristics are investigated. The proposed fabrication process, based on the deposition of successive dry film photoresist layers with low thermal conductivity, is easy to implement, adaptive to specific applications, cost-effective, and significantly improves thermal management. Three target application designs, requiring high mass flow rates (pump A), high pressure differences (pump B), and relatively high mass flow rates and pressure differences (pump C), are proposed. Computations are performed based on kinetic modeling via the infinite capillary theory, taking into account all foreseen manufacturing and operation constraints. The performance characteristics of the three pump designs in terms of geometry (number of parallel microchannels per stage and number of stages) and inlet pressure are obtained. It is found that pumps A and B operate more efficiently at pressures higher than 5 kPa and lower than 20 kPa, respectively, while the optimum operation range of pump C is at inlet pressures between 1 kPa and 20 kPa. In all cases, it is advisable to have the maximum number of stages as well as of parallel microchannels per stage that can be technologically realized. Full article

A Knudsen pump operates under the thermal transpiration effect or the thermal edge effect on the micro-scale. Due to the uneven temperature distribution of the walls in the channel axis direction or the constant temperature of the tips on the walls, directional thermally-induced flow is generated. In this paper the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is applied for N₂–O₂ gas mixtures in the ratios of 4:1, 1:1, and 1:4 with different Knudsen numbers in a classic rectangular Knudsen pump to study the flow characteristics of the gas mixtures in the pump. The results show that the changing in the gas physical properties does not affect the distribution of the velocity field, temperature fields, or other fields in the Knudsen pump. The thermal creep effect is related to the molecular mass of the gas. Even in N₂ and O₂ gas mixtures with similar molecular masses, N₂ can be also found to have a stronger thermal creep effect. Moreover, the lighter molecular weight gas (N₂) can effectively promote the motion of the heavier gas (O₂). Full article