Experimental and Computational Observation of Radiometric Forces on a Plate (Preprint)

The radiometric force on several configurations of heated plates placed in a stagnant gas is examined experimentally on a high resolution thrust stand and numerically using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. A wide range of pressures from 0.006Pa to 6Pa corresponding to Knudsen numbers from 20 to 0.02 is examined for nitrogen, argon, xenon, and helium test gases. It is shown that the force is maximum in the transition regime Kn0.1 and is heavily dependent on the plate area. It is also shown that the force is strongly correlated with the chamber size, decreasing with increasing chamber size.