A Journey Through Time

A history of Fluid Dynamics from antiquity to the present day

Fluid Dynamics I – Learn the Basics

Introduction to Fluid Dynamics
Overview

1 A History of Fluid Dynamics

(from Antiquity to the present day)

2 Summary
Antiquity
❖ We humans have observed the world around us since ancient
times, and fluids behavior was a prime subject for study.

❖ Focus on harnessing wind and water flows for useful purposes,

e. g. windmills, ships, water wheels, canals, harbors, aqueducts.

❖ One key figure from antiquity was Greek scientist Archimedes

(287 - 212 BC). He initiated the fields of static mechanics,
hydrostatics, and pycnometry (how to measure densities and Archimedes
volumes of objects).

❖ One of Archimedes’ inventions was the water screw, a device

that can be used to lift and transport water and granular
materials.

Any object completely or partially submerged in

a fluid is buoyed up by a force with magnitude
equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the
object.

Archimedes
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
❖ Leonardo da Vinci of Italy is perhaps the most famous natural scientist up to the
Renaissance.

❖ His contributions to fluids knowledge are presented in a nine part treatise Del
moto e misura dell’acqua, that covers water waves, eddies, water falls and free jets,
interference of waves, and many other observed phenomena. He also designed a
flying machine called the “ornithopter”.

❖ He planned and supervised canal and harbor works over a large part of middle
Italy. In France he designed a canal that connected the Loire and Saone.
Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662)
❖ Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and
philosopher.

❖ He made many contributions to the study of fluids and

hydraulics, including inventing the hydraulic press and
syringe, and establishing the basis for fluid statics.
“Pascal’s Law” states that a fluid’s pressure in a container
is equal in all directions and on all parts of the
container.
❖ He also demonstrated that air has a finite weight and
could be measured with a barometer.

❖ His experiments were summarized in 1663 in the

posthumously published work Treatise on the
Equilibrium of Liquids and Treatise on the Weight of the
Mass of the Air.
Source: Blaise Pascal, “Traitez de l'Equilibre des Liqueurs, et
❖ Unit of pressure in the metric system (N/m2) is named de la Pesanteur de la Masse de L'air ,” Hay Exhibit, accessed

in honor of Pascal.
on November 14, 2019.
Isaac Newton (1643 –1727)
❖ Isaac Newton was one of the most important figures in
science and mathematics.

❖ He is most well-known for his three laws of motion, Newton

published the hugely influential Philosophiæ Naturalis
Principia Mathematica in 1687.

❖ His key contributions to fluid dynamics include:

❖ The laws of motion, particularly the second law of motion:

𝐹 = 𝑚𝑎
❖ The concept of Newtonian viscosity, in which stress and the rate of strain
vary linearly.

❖ The reciprocity principle: the force applied upon a stationary object by a

moving fluid is equal to the change in momentum of the fluid as it
deflects around the front of the object.

❖ Relationship between the speed of waves at a liquid surface and the

wavelength.

❖ Development of analytical mathematical methods, including Calculus. Source: Newton, I., Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica, 1687
6
Daniel Bernoulli (1700 – 1782)
❖ Trained as a physician, Daniel Bernoulli had a keen interest
in math and science, especially fluid flow.

❖ He developed a way to measure pressure in a pipe using

an early form of a manometer.

❖ He derived his famous relation for the total energy of a

moving fluid (below), showing how the fluid’s total energy
has potential (pressure and elevation) and kinetic energy
contributions. This provided an explanation as to why
fluid pressure falls when the velocity increases.

❖ His results were published in 1738 in his master work

Hydrodynamica.

1
𝑝 + 𝜌𝑉 2 + 𝜌𝑔ℎ = 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡
2
Bernoulli’s Equation
Source: Bernoulli, Daniel 1738 Hydrodynamica, sive de viribus
et motibus fluidorum commentarii, Strasbourg.
Leonhard Euler (1707 – 1783)

❖ Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician who

made many substantial contributions to both
mathematics and physics.

❖ Euler developed the modern analytical framework

for fluid dynamics analysis, wherein the governing
differential equations of fluid motion are formulated
and solved to obtain flow field solutions.
Euler’s equations of fluid dynamics were first
published in 1757 in the article Principes Genereraux
du Mouvement des Fluides.

The inviscid flow equations as

originally published by Euler

Source: L. Euler, Principes Generaux Du Mouvement Des

Fluides, 1757
The Turn of the 19th Century
❖ Mathematics and physics (including the study of fluids) were developing rapidly at the beginning of the
19th century. In addition to Euler, some key figures were:
❖ Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749 – 1827) – Established the foundations of mathematical physics and studied the
famous differential equation now known as Laplace’s Equation (solutions of which would be key in fluid dynamics
analysis).

❖ Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717 – 1783) – French mathematician and physicist, who, in 1752, concluded that a
body moving in an inviscid fluid had zero drag based on the available theory of fluid dynamics. This was resolved
later as researchers began to understand the physics of viscous fluid flow.

❖ Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 – 1830) – French mathematician who studied heat transfer in solids and
developed the important concept of expressing arbitrary functions as a series of sine waves of differing
amplitude. This idea (now known as the Fourier Series) would lead to substantial breakthroughs in the
mathematical physics.

Pierre-Simon Laplace Jean le Rond d’Alembert Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Navier and Stokes (Early 19th Century)

❖ Claude Louis Marie Henry Navier (1785 – 1836) was a

French civil engineer and professor of science at the Ecole
Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees. In 1822, he wrote the
memoir Sur Les Lois Du Mouvement Des Fluides, wherein he
developed a form of the steady-state, incompressible,
viscous flow equations. However, he did not have a correct
theory for viscous shear, and so his formulation turned out
to be incomplete. C. Navier
Source: C. L. M. H. Navier, “Mémoire sur les lois du
Mouvement des Fluides,” Mémoires de l’Académie Royale
des Sciences de l’Institut de France, 1823, pp. 389-440.
❖ George G. Stokes (1819 – 1903) was a professor of physics
and mathematics at the University of Cambridge in
England. He made important contributions to fluid
dynamics, and in 1845 authored the paper On the Theories
of Internal Friction of Fluids In Motion and of the Equilibrium
and Motion of Elastic Solids. In this paper, he provided the
proper mathematical description of viscous shear in fluids,
thus completing the development of the governing
equations of fluid dynamics begun by Euler, Navier, and
G. Stokes
others.
Source: G. G. Stokes, On the Theories of the Internal Friction of
Fluids in Motion, and of the Equilibrium and Motion of Elastic
Solids, 1845
The Navier-Stokes Equations

Navier’s Equations (1822)

Note the similarity to Euler’s equations from 1757

Stokes’ Equations (1845)

This is the form used in fluid dynamics today
About the Navier-Stokes Equations…
❖ Ever since they were formulated by Navier and Stokes in the 19th century,
the Navier-Stokes equations have been well-studied by mathematicians,
physicists, and engineers. This work goes on even in the present day…

❖ But what do we know about them?

❖ We consider them to be the proper governing equations for fluid flow, but our
theoretical understanding of them is incomplete.

❖ Basic properties of the solutions remain unproven, in particular that smooth

solutions always exist for a given set of initial and boundary condition. This is
known as the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem.

❖ The Clay Mathematics Institute has offered a $1,000,000 prize to the first person
to solve this problem, which is described in detail at the following link:
http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/navier-stokes-equation

❖ While the deep mathematical properties of the equations remain elusive, exact
and numerical solutions are possible using well-defined domains with
initial/boundary conditions. The accuracy of these solutions has been bourn out
through decades of research, comparing experimental, real-world fluid behavior
to the solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations.
Mid 19th Century Fluid Dynamics

❖ During the 19th century, major strides were made in the understanding
of fluid flow, but application of the available physical theories to
practical problems was difficult.

❖ Theory – Basic governing equations of incompressible fluid dynamics

were known by 1845 but general solutions were impossible to obtain.
So, approximate solutions were developed based on potential flow
assumptions, simplified geometries, and physical conditions.
Turbulence was poorly understood. The development of the science of
thermodynamics was just beginning.

❖ Experiments – For practical applications, experimentalists developed

formulas and correlations for specific geometries and fluids (e.g. water Henry Darcy (1803 – 1858)
in a pipe). A good example is the Darcy-Weisbach Equation for pipe
head loss (hL): Made significant
contributions to hydraulics
and flow in porous media.
𝐿 𝑉2 The friction factor (f) is
ℎ𝐿 = 𝑓 obtained from tables and
𝐷 2𝑔 charts
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821 – 1894)
❖ Hermann Von Helmholtz was a German physician (by
training) who made significant contributions to many
areas of physics, including thermodynamics, acoustics
and fluid dynamics.

❖ In 1858, he published his seminal work on vortex

dynamics Uber Integrale der hydrodynamischen
Gleichungen, welche den Wirbelbewegungen entsprechen
(“On Integrals of the Hydrodynamical Equations, which
Express Vortex-motion”). In this work, he developed a
way of simplifying fluid dynamics using inviscid vortex
motion, and deduced that vortex lines are advected by
the flow. He also coined the term “vorticity” to denote
the angular velocity (strength) of a vortex.

Source: Helmholtz, H. "Über Integrale der hydrodynamischen Gleichungen, welche den

Wirbelbewegungen entsprechen". Journal für die reine und angewandte
Mathematik. 55. ISSN 0075-4102
The Development of Thermodynamics
❖ In parallel with the evolution of fluid dynamics, the science of thermodynamics was gradually
developed by 19th century physicists and engineers. This would prove to be essential in
understanding the behavior of compressible fluids, multiphase processes, and chemistry.

❖ Key figures in the development of thermodynamic theory and practice included:

❖ Sadi Carnot (1796 – 1832) – Published original theory of heat engines.

❖ Benoit Clapeyron (1799 – 1864) – Refined Carnot’s work and developed analysis of phase transition.

❖ Rudolf Clausius (1822 – 1888) – Developed the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

❖ William Thomson/Lord Kelvin (1824 – 1907) – Further refined the laws of thermodynamics.

❖ William Rankine (1820 – 1872) – Developed and refined the theory of heat engines.

Sadi Carnot Benoit Clapeyron Rudolf Clausius William Thomson William Rankine
The First Law of Thermodynamics (R. Clausius)

Source: Clausius, R. „ The Mechanical Theory of

Heat with is Applications to the Steam-Engine
Osborne Reynolds (1842 – 1912)
❖ Reynolds was a prolific writer who published almost 70 papers
during his lifetime on a wide variety of science and engineering
related topics.
❖ He is most well-known for the Reynolds number, which is the
ratio between inertial and viscous forces in a fluid.
𝜌𝑈𝐷
𝑅𝑒 =
𝜇

❖ Reynolds discovered the importance of this parameter by using

the experimental apparatus shown on the right. The state of Reynolds’ apparatus
the flow was visualized by a streak of dye injected at the
entrance to the pipe.
Laminar
❖ Reynolds found that the flow transitioned between laminar and
turbulent states when the parameter exceeded approximately 2000.
Experimental result as reported from
Reynolds’ original paper On the
Dynamical Theory of Incompressible Turbulent
Viscous Fluids and the Determination
of the Criterion.
William Froude (1810 – 1879)
❖ William Froude was an English hydrodynamicist and
naval architect who helped establish the use of
models to predict the performance of ships.

❖ In his investigation of efficient ship hull shapes in the

1870s, Froude developed formulas for extrapolating
results obtained from scale model water tunnel tests
to full size ship design.

❖ His work helped established dynamic similarity rules

which enable experimental results from model tests
to be applied to full scale designs. These principals Froude’s water tunnel
which are still used today.

❖ His work also established the importance of

dimensionless ratio of fluid inertia to the gravity
force (now known as the Froude Number) in ship hull
hydraulic resistance:

𝑈
𝐹𝑟 =
𝑔𝐿
Froude’s model ship hull designs
Ernst Mach (1838 – 1916)
❖ Ernst Mach was a prominent physicist and philosopher of
the 19th century who is noted for his groundbreaking work
on high speed compressible flow.
❖ In 1887, Mach and physicist Peter Salcher published a paper
Photographische Fixirung der durch Projectile in der Luft
eingeleiteten Vorgange (“Photographic fixation of the
process initiated by projectiles in the air”), showing the
existence of shock waves in a supersonic, compressible flow.
❖ The ratio of the fluid velocity to the speed of sound was
eventually named the Mach number in his honor.

𝑈
𝑀𝑎 =
𝑐

❖ His work would soon become important as aviation

approached the jet age in the mid 20th century.
Historic 1887 photograph (shadowgraph) and illustration of a bow
Source: Ernst Mach, Peter Salcher, “Photographische Fixierung shockwave around a supersonic projectile
der durch Projectile in der Luft eingeleiteten Vorgänge“, 1887
Fluid Dynamics at the Dawn of the 20th century
❖ At the dawn of the 20th century, the equations
governing fluid dynamics and thermodynamics were
known. BUT – general solutions were STILL elusive or
impractical to calculate. And turbulent flows were
still not fully understood, despite the initial research
efforts by Reynolds and others.
Wright Brothers flyer, 1904
❖ So, there was a great reliance on experiments, as Orville Wilbur

seen in the works of Darcy, Reynolds, Froude, and

many others.
❖ In 1903, the Wright brothers (Wilbur and Orville
Wright) perfected and demonstrated powered flight,
thus beginning the age of aeronautics. Their work
was largely based upon wind tunnel experiments
carried out at their shop in Dayton, Ohio and
extensive prototype testing in North Carolina.
❖ Theoretical and experimental fluid dynamics would
forever be impacted by the rapid development of
aeronautical applications from the Wright Brothers Wing lift data record by the
Source: NASA

first flight to the present day! Wright brothers

 Ludwig Prandtl (1875 – 1953)
❖ Ludwig Prandtl was a prolific scientist and engineer who
made ground-breaking contributions to the theory and
application of fluid dynamics. He spent most of his
career as director of the Institute for Technical Physics at
the University of Göttingen in Germany.
❖ Prandtl is best known for the development of boundary
layer theory, which was first stated in his paper Über
Flüssigkeitsbewegung bei sehr kleiner Reibung (“About
fluid movement with very small friction”).
❖ His idea divided a real flow into (1) a thin layer near
walls where viscous effects were important and (2) flow
outside this layer which could be modeled more simply
as an inviscid flow.
❖ This theory was a tremendous advance in applying fluid
dynamics to practical problems since both regions could
be calculated using simpler, approximate methods!
Source: Prandtl, L. (1905) über Flüssigkeitsbewegung bei sehr kleiner
Reibung. Verhandlungen des III. Internationalen Mathematiker
Kongresses, Heidelberg, 8-13 August 1904, B. G. Teubner, Leipzig,
485-491. (In German)
Theodore von Karman (1881 – 1963)
❖ Theodore von Karman was a Hungarian-born
scientist who made major contributions to the
development of fluid dynamics throughout the 20th
century.
❖ He studied under Ludwig Prandtl at the University
of Gottingen, during which he studied flow
separation from a cylinder, now known as the Von
Karman Vortex Street.
❖ In 1929, he was invited by Cal Tech president
Robert Millikan to head the new aeronautical Von Karman ogive shape
laboratory at the university. This would later evolve IanSan5653 / CC ASA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1944.

❖ He made considerable contributions to the
development of turbulence theory and high speed
compressible flows:
❖ Von Karman constant for turbulent boundary layers
❖ Von Karman ogive for minimum drag nose cones
Von Karman vortex street
❖ Von Karman-Tsien compressibility correction Wdwdbot / CC ASA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons
Understanding Turbulence

❖ As fluid dynamics advanced into the 20th century, it was

recognized the nature of fluid turbulence was one of
the fundamental unsolved problems.
❖ Turbulence is observed as unsteady, chaotic, random
fluctuations in fluid flow, as noted by Reynolds.
❖ While the Navier-Stokes equations admit solutions with G.I. Taylor A.N. Kolmogorov
turbulence, the time and spatial scales required make
general solutions impossible to determine.
❖ The best way forward was to develop models of
turbulence such that practical flow field solutions could
be determined using simplified equations.
❖ In addition to Prandtl and von Karman, several
researchers paved the way towards our modern
understanding of turbulence: G.K. Batchelor
❖ G. I. Taylor (1886 – 1975) – Developed statistical methods for studying turbulence.
❖ A. N. Kolmogorov (1903 – 1987) – Studied scales of turbulent motion and the universal energy spectrum.
❖ G. K. Batchelor (1920 – 2000) – Contributed to the theory of homogeneous turbulence.
Aerodynamics and Streamlining
❖ One of the practical results of early 20th century fluids research was the development of
streamlining as a way of reducing vehicle drag.

❖ By the 1930s and 1940s, designers of trains, automobiles, and aircraft were using sculpted
shapes based on available theory and data obtained in wind tunnels.

❖ As a result of these efforts, transportation technology advanced rapidly.

Streamlined vehicles from the 1930s

The Bell X-1 and the Dawn of the Jet Age
Richard Whitcomb
❖ In 1947, a rocket-powered aircraft broke the sound
barrier for the first time in level flight. It was the Bell
X-1 piloted by Captain Chuck Yaeger. The success of
this flight was the culmination of years of research on
the effects of compressibility on aircraft lift and
control.
❖ In 1952, Richard Whitcomb discovered the “area
rule” design principle which enabled supersonic
aircraft to easily exceed Mach 1 and beyond (the X-1
Convair F-102A was an early example of the “area
rule”).
❖ More experimental “X” aircraft followed, culminating
in the rocket-powered X-15, which in 1967 achieved
the highest speed ever recorded for a manned,
powered aircraft: 4520 mph (Mach 6.7).
❖ Along the way, aerospace science (both theory and
experiment) was advanced to help guide and X-15
improve the performance of airframes and F-102A (with area-ruled fuselage)
propulsion systems for both aircraft and rockets.
Numerical Computation in Fluid Dynamics
❖ At the start of the 20th century, only approximate methods
and hand calculations could be applied to general fluid
dynamics problems.
❖ Prandtl’s boundary layer theory simplified the modeling, but
solutions were still laborious to calculate. Why?
1. The Navier-Stokes equations (and boundary layer simplifications)
are non-linear, coupled partial differential equations. There are
no general solutions.
Early 20th century mechanical calculator
2. At the time, fluid turbulence was poorly understood, though
Prandtl, von Karman and others began making important
contributions to our understanding.
❖ Was there another way to solve practical problems? Yes!
Numerical Methods.
❖ Numerical methods for solving differential equations had
been known since the time of Euler. But solving realistic fluid Slide rule (a simple analog calculator)
flow models required an enormous amount of computation
on the available mechanical calculating machines.
❖ Because of the lack of computing machines, numerical methods for fluid dynamics problems would not
be fully developed until much later in the 20th century.
Early Numerical Work
❖ In 1933, Alexander Thom (in conjunction with G.I. Taylor)
published one of the first results of a numerical computation for
flow over a circular cylinder at low Reynolds number (The Flow
Past Circular Cylinders at Low Speeds). The numerical solution was
hand calculated on a discrete grid.

❖ The paper included photos from experimental tests a sketch of the

computed fluid streamlines – a precursor to computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) analysis which is ubiquitous today!

Streamlines from Experiment Source: Taylor, G. I., The Flow Past Circular Cylinders at Low Speeds, 1933
Numerical solution
Lewis Fry Richardson (1881-1953)
❖ Lewis Fry Richardson was an English mathematician and
physicist. In 1922, he developed the first numerical
weather prediction system.
❖ He divided a region of the earth into grid cells and applied
finite difference approximations to equations governing
geophysical fluid dynamics. He developed this approach in
form that could be solved by hand calculations.
❖ His own attempt to predict the motion of air masses for a
single eight-hour period took six weeks and ended in
failure…
❖ …BUT, they pointed the way to adoption of numerical
methods for solving large scale problems in fluid dynamics.
❖ His model's enormous calculation requirements led
Richardson to propose a solution he called the “forecast-
factory.”
❖ The "factory" would have filled a vast stadium with 64,000
people, each one armed with a mechanical calculator to
perform part of the calculation.
❖ A leader in the center, using colored signal lights and
telegraph communication, would coordinate the forecast. Richardson’s “Forecast Factory”
The First Computing Machines (1950s)
❖ In 1948, mathematician John von Neumann and Beelaj~commonswiki / LANL

meteorologist Jule Charney began a U.S. Navy-

funded program to attempt to solve the weather
prediction problem which had eluded L.F. Richardson
over two decades earlier.
❖ In 1950, a group of five scientists successfully
programmed the ENIAC computer to make four 24-
hour forecasts, which demonstrated that large-scale
features of atmospheric flow could be predicted with
acceptable accuracy. The era of computational fluid
dynamics had begun!
John von Neumann
❖ ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer)
❖ Completed in 1945, it was among the first
programmable computers, and over a thousand times
faster than electro-mechanical calculators.
❖ It used over 20,000 vacuum tubes and was prone to
tube failure.
The Rise of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
❖ During the 1960s the theoretical division at Los Alamos contributed many numerical methods that are
still in use today:
❖ Particle-In-Cell (PIC).
❖ Marker-and-Cell (MAC).
❖ Vorticity-Stream Function Methods.
❖ Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE).
❖ The k- turbulence model.
❖ During the 1970s and 1980s a group working under D. Brian Spalding, at Imperial College, London,
develop:
❖ Parabolic flow codes (GENMIX).
❖ The SIMPLE algorithm and the TEACH code.
❖ The form of the k- equations that are used today.
❖ Upwind differencing and stable solution methods.
❖ ‘Eddy break-up’ and ‘presumed PDF’ combustion models.
❖ Meanwhile CFD becomes a mainstream discipline in academia and industry, resulting in many books
and publications on CFD methods for a wide range of fluid flow and heat transfer problems
(incompressible to hypersonic)
Advances in Computing Power*
Processing Speed
Year Computing System
(Megaflops)

1970 CDC 6600 1

1980 Cray 1 Vector Computer 102 Jitze Couperus / CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

CDC 6600
1994 IBM SP2 Parallel Computer 104

2007 LINUX Clusters 108

2009 HP Pavilion Quadcore Notebook 103

Laptop
2011 MacBook Pro Quadcore Laptop 2.5 x 103

2012 ORNL Titan Super Computer (GPUs) 2.0 x 1010

2.0 x1012
2018 ORNL Summit Super Computer (GPUs)

*Reference: Witherden, F.D., Jameson, A., “Future Directions in Computational Fluid Dynamics,” AIAA, 2017
ORNL Summit
Fluid Dynamics in the 21st Century
❖ Fluid dynamics today is dominated by simulation

❖ Numerical methods and software have advanced to point

where CFD is used in every stage of design, and has largely
supplanted large scale testing.
❖ Turbulence modeling has matured.

❖ Additional physics can be accommodated (e.g. multiphase flow,

combustion, radiation, fluid-structure interaction…)

❖ Experimental work is still conducted as simulation methods do

have limitations due to assumptions and modeling. However,
the number of experiments has been greatly reduced so
scientists and engineers can focus on more viable designs.
 Summary
❖ Fluid dynamics is relevant to our everyday lives and is
important in wide range of scientific and engineering
disciplines.
❖ Our understanding of fluid motion has evolved over
several centuries of scientific investigation.
❖ Today, we can largely study fluid dynamics problems
using numerical (computer) simulation, but we also need
experimental verification for challenging and complex
problems.