Abstract
A rarefied gas adjacent to an infinite plane wall with periodic temperature distribution is theoretically considered for the cases with a finite Knudsen number. The gas molecules are subject to gravity in the direction toward the wall. When the molecule collides with the wall, molecular velocity after the collision is determined according to the isotropic-Gaussian probability density distribution characterized by the temperature there (diffuse reflection). The steady gas flow established under this setting is investigated on the basis of kinetic theory of gases. By the numerical analysis using the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, it is found that the steady flow near the wall is induced from the colder part of the wall to the hotter part. Since the flow decreases for smaller gravity, the observed flow is attributed to the presence of gravity, and is different from the thermal transpiration which is typical in rarefied gas dynamics.
