Numerical Prediction of the Flow Characteristics of a Micro Shock Tube

Recently, micro shock tube is being extensively used in various fields of engineering applications. The flow characteristics occurring in the micro shock tube may be significantly different from that of conventional macro shock tube due to very low Reynolds number and Knudsen number effects which are, in general, manifested in such flows of rarefied gas, solid-gas two-phase, etc. In these situations, Navier-Stokes equations cannot properly predict the micro shock tube flow. In the present study, a two-dimensional CFD method has been applied to simulate the micro shock tube, with slip velocity and temperature jump boundary conditions. The effects of wall thermal conditions on the unsteady flow in the micro shock tube were also investigated. The unsteady behaviors of shock wave and contact discontinuity were, in detail, analyzed. The results obtained show much more attenuation of shock wave, compared with macro-shock tubes.