Two recent works have shown that at small Knudsen number (K) the pressure and temperature profiles in plane Poiseuille flow exhibit a different qualitative behavior from the profiles obtained by the Navier-Stokes equations. Tij and Santos [J. Stat. Phys. 76, 1399 (1994)] used the Bhatnagar-Gross-Kook model to show that the temperature profile is bimodal and the pressure profile is nonconstant. Malek-Mansour, Baras, and Garcia [Physica A 240, 255 (1997)] qualitatively confirmed these predictions in computer experiments using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method (DSMC). In this paper we compare the DSMC measurements of hydrodynamic variables and non-equilibrium fluxes with numerical solutions of the Burnett equations. Given that they are in better agreement with molecular-dynamics simulations [E. Salomons and M. Mareschal, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 269 (1992)] of strong shock waves than Navier-Stokes [F. J. Uribe, R. M. Velasco, and L. S. García-Colín, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2044 (1998)], and that they are second order in Knudsen number suggests that the Burnett equations may provide a better description for large K. We find that for plane Poiseuille flow the Burnett equations do not predict the bimodal temperature profile but do recover many of the other anomalous features (e.g., nonconstant pressure and nonzero parallel heat flux).

• Received 30 March 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.60.4063