DSMC Simulation of Rarefied Gas Flow Over a Wall Mounted Cube

The present study investigates the flow behavior of the rarefied gas over a wall-mounted cube. The problem is studied for different cube heights (h) of 9mm and 18mm in the slip and transition regimes. The Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is employed to evaluate the properties such as velocity, pressure and temperature fields. The Reynolds number (Re) ranges from 403 to 807, and the Knudsen number (Kn) is in the range from 0.05 to 0.103. A typical shock wave is formed in front of the cube. The recirculation length of the vortices normalized with respect to the respective cube heights for Kn = 0.05 and Kn = 0.103 are about 1.11 and 1.95 respectively. Similarly, the center of the vortices is located at about 3.33 and 6.11 times the respective cube heights upstream, for Kn = 0.05 and Kn = 0.103. The local temperature and pressure variations observed upstream of the cube are two orders higher in magnitude and are primarily attributed to strong compressibility effects. The present study paves the way for benchmarking, and forms a basis for understanding the rarefied gas flows over complex geometries.