The effect of a temperature gradient in a gas inclined at an angle to a boundary wall has been investigated. For an infinite half-space of gas it is found that, in addition to the conventional temperature slip problem, the component of the temperature gradient parallel to the wall induces a net mass flow known as thermal creep. We show that the temperature slip and thermal creep effects can be decoupled and treated quite separately.

Expressions are obtained for the creep velocity and heat flux, both far from and at the boundary; it is noted that thermal creep tends to reduce the effective thermal conductivity of the medium.