The Effect of an Inhomogeneous Distribution of Surface Temperature on Couette Flow

The Couette flow for surfaces with an inhomogeneous distribution of temperature is considered. It is shown that heat fluxes and friction stresses for Knudsen numbers ($\mathrm{Kn}$) larger than or on the order of unity can be significantly optimized by varying surface temperature distribution at a fixed mean temperature. For $\mathrm{Kn}\ll 1$, flows with an inhomogeneously distributed temperature are close to the Couette flow for a surface with corresponding mean temperature.