Variable Physical Properties in Natural Convective Gas Microflow

Anisothermal flow prevails in a heated microchannel. It is desirable to understand the influence of temperature-dependent physical properties on the flow and heat transfer characteristics for natural convective gas microflow. In this study, formulas for the shear viscosity, thermal conductivity, constant-pressure specific heat, density, and molecular mean free path are proposed in power-law form and validated through experimental data. Natural convective gas flow with variable physical properties in a long open-ended vertical parallel-plate microchannel with asymmetric wall temperature distributions is further investigated. The full Navier–Stokes equations and energy equation combined with the first-order slip∕jump boundary conditions are employed. Analysis process shows that the compressibility and viscous dissipation terms in balance equations are negligible. Numerical solutions are presented for air at the standard reference state with complete accommodation. It is found that the effect of variable properties should be considered for hotter-wall temperatures greater than $306.88K$⁠. The effect is to advance the velocity slip and temperature jump as well as the velocity symmetry and temperature nonlinearity. Moreover, it tends to reduce the mass flow rate and the local heat transfer rate excluding on the cooler-wall surface where the temperature-jump effect prevails over the temperature-nonlinearity effect. Increasing the cooler-wall temperature magnifies the effect on flow behavior but minifies that on thermal behavior.