The effect of characteristic length on mean free path for confined gases

•The work gives insight into the influence of characteristic length on the MFP.•The effect of characteristic length on MFP is significant at low fluid densities.•The variation of MFP with characteristic length is non-linear for a solid wall.

Molecular Dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the influence of system boundaries and characteristic length (L) of the system on the mean free path (MFP) of rarefied gas confined to the walls of a nano-channel. Isothermal Lennard-Jones fluid confined between Reflective walls and platinum walls at different number densities (0.31 atoms/nm3 and 1.61 atoms/nm3) are independently considered. The MFP is calculated by the Lagrangian approach of tracking the trajectory of each atom and averaging the distance between successive collisions. The percentage of fluid–wall collisions is observed to predominate over fluid–fluid collisions at high levels of rarefaction. The influence of L (varying from 6 nm to 16 nm) on MFP is examined in this regime. At lower Knudsen number (Kn), it is observed that the effect of L on MFP is minimal. However, at higher rarefaction the characteristic dimension influences the MFP significantly for various wall configurations.