Abstract
Steady gas flows in a vacuum pump driven by thermal edge flow, which is proposed in Rarefied Gas Dynamics, AIP, New York, 138-141 (2002), are investigated numerically for various Knudsen numbers by the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method based on the Boltzmann equation for a hard-sphere gas. The data of the maximum mass flow rate, energy consumption rate, and the maximum compression ratio of the pump is presented with some additional results on the effect of geometry and temperature ratio in the pump unit.
