Abstract
We show that the Knudsen thermal force generated by a thermally-induced flow over a heated beam near a colder wall could be amplified significantly by thermoelectric heating. Bidirectional actuation is achieved by switching the polarity of the thermoelectric device bias voltage. The measurements of the resulting thermal forces at different rarefaction regimes, realized by changing geometry and gas pressure, are done using torsional microbalance. The repulsive or attractive forces between a thermoelectrically heated or cooled plate and a substrate are shown to be up to an order of magnitude larger than for previously studied configurations and heating methods due to favorable coupling of two thermal gradients. The amplification and reversal of the Knudsen force is confirmed by numerical solution of the Boltzmann-ESBGK kinetic modelequation. Because of the favorable scaling with decreasing system size, the Knudsen force with thermoelectric heating offers a novel actuation and sensing mechanism for nano/microsystems.
Date of this Version
2014
DOI
10.1063/1.4902661
Recommended Citation
O'Neill, William J.; Wada, Mizuki; Strongrich, Andrew D.; Cofer, Anthony; and Alexeenko, Alina A., "Amplification and reversal of Knudsen force by thermoelectric heating" (2014). School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Faculty Publications. Paper 41.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4902661
Comments
Copyright (2014) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in (W. J. O’Neill*, M. Wada*, A. D. Strongrich*, A. Cofer*, A. Alexeenko, “Amplification and reversal of Knudsen force by thermoelectric heating”, Proceedings of 29th International Symposium on Rarefied Gas Dynamics, Xi’an, China, July 13-19, 2014, pp. 697-704) and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4902661. The following article has been submitted to/accepted by [American Institute of Physics]. After it is published, it will be found at (http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4902661). Copyright (2014) W. J. O’Neill*, M. Wada*, A. D. Strongrich*, A. Cofer*, A. Alexeenko. This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.