Effect of nonuniform accommodation coefficient distribution on the couette flow

The Couette flow is considered for surfaces with nonuniformly distributed energy accommodation coefficients α. It is shown that at Knudsen numbers greater or of the order of unity heat fluxes and viscous stresses can be considerably optimized by varying the surface distribution of α at a fixed integral value. At the same time, for Kn ≪ 1 the flows with nonuniformly distributed α are similar with the flow with a constant accommodation coefficient equal to its mean value.