8.2.

EXACT SOLUTIONS FOR STEADY INCOMPRESSIBLE VISCOUS FLOW 317

u24
#
1 dp d 1 d! "
¼ , and 0¼m Ru4 :
R r dR dR R dR
The R-momentum equation shows that the pressure increases radially outward due to the
centrifugal acceleration. The pressure distribution can therefore be determined once u4(R)
has been found. Integrating the 4-momentum equation twice produces
! "
u4 R ¼ AR þ B=R: (8.9)
Using the boundary conditions u4 ¼ U1R1 at R ¼ R1, and u4 ¼ U2R2 at R ¼ R2, A and B are
found to be

U2 R22 U1 R21 U2 U1 R21 R22

! "
A¼ , and B ¼ :
R22 R21 R22 R21
Substitution of these into (8.9) produces the velocity distribution,
R21 R22
$ '
1 % 2 2
&
u4 ðRÞ ¼ 2 U2 R2 U1 R1 R ½U2 U1 & , (8.10)
R2 R21 R
which has interesting limiting cases when R2 / N with U2 ¼ 0, and when R1 / 0 with
U1 ¼ 0.
The first limiting case produces the flow outside a long circular cylinder with radius R1
rotating with angular velocity U1 in an infinite bath of viscous fluid (Figure 8.7). By direct
simplification of (8.10), the velocity distribution is
U1 R21
u4 ðRÞ ¼ , (8.11)
R

FIGURE 8.7 Rotation of a solid

cylinder of radius R1 in an infinite
body of viscous fluid. If gravity
points downward along the cylin-
der’s axis, the shape of a free
surface pierced by the cylinder is
also indicated. The flow field is
viscous but irrotational.
318 8. LAMINAR FLOW

which is identical to that of an ideal vortex, see (5.2), for R > R1 when G ¼ 2pU1 R21 . This is the
only example of a viscous solution that is completely irrotational. As described in Section 5.1,
shear stresses do exist in this flow, but there is no net viscous force on a fluid element. The
viscous shear stress at any point is given by
2mU1 R21
#
1 vuR v ( u4 )
sR4 ¼ m þR ¼ :
R v4 vR R R2
The mechanical power supplied to the fluid (per unit length of cylinder) is (2pR1)sR4u4,
and it can be shown that this power equals the integrated viscous dissipation of the flow field
(Exercise 8.12).
The second limiting case of (8.10) produces steady viscous flow within a cylindrical tank of
radius R2 rotating at rate U2. Setting R1 and U1 equal to zero in (8.10) leads to
ufðRÞ ¼ U2 R, (8.12)
which is the velocity field of solid body rotation, see (5.1) and Section 5.1.
The three exact solutions of the incompressible viscous flow equations (4.10) and (8.1)
described in this section are all known as internal or confined flows. In each case, the velocity
field was confined between solid walls and the symmetry of each situation eliminated the
nonlinear advective acceleration term from the equations. Other exact solutions of the incom-
pressible viscous flow equations for confined and unconfined flows are described in other
fine texts (Sherman, 1990; White, 2006), in Section 8.4, and in the Exercises of this chapter.
However, before proceeding to these, a short diversion into elementary lubrication theory
is provided in the next section.

8.3. ELEMENTARY LUBRICATION THEORY

The exact viscous flow solutions for ideal geometries presented in the prior section indi-
cate that a linear or simply varying velocity profile is a robust solution for flow within
a confined space. This observation has been developed into the theory of lubrication, which
provides approximate solutions to the viscous flow equations when the geometry is not ideal
but at least one transverse flow dimension is small. The elementary features of lubrication
theory are presented here because of its connection to the exact solutions described in Section
8.2, especially the Couette and Poiseuille flow solutions. Plus, the development of approxi-
mate equations in this section parallels that necessary for the boundary layer approximation
(see Section 9.1).
The economic importance of lubrication with viscous fluids is hard to overestimate, and
lubrication theory covers the mathematical formulation and analysis of such flows. The
purpose of this section is to develop the most elementary equations of lubrication theory
and illustrate some interesting phenomena that occur in viscous constant-density flows
where the flow’s boundaries or confining walls are close together, but not precisely
parallel, and their motion is mildly unsteady. For simplicity consider two spatial dimen-
sions, x and y, where the primary flow direction, x, lies along the narrow flow passage
with gap height h(x,t) (see Figure 8.8). The length L of this passage is presumed to be large
 8.3. ELEMENTARY LUBRICATION THEORY 319
y
h)x,t)

u(x,y,t)
x

FIGURE 8.8 Nearly parallel flow of a viscous fluid having a film thickness of h(x,t) above a flat stationary
surface.

compared to h so that viscous and pressure forces are the primary terms in any fluid-
momentum balance. If the passage is curved, this will not influence the analysis as long
as the radius of curvature is much larger than the gap height h. The field equations are
(4.10) and (8.1) for the horizontal u, and vertical v velocity components, and the pressure
p in the fluid:
vu vv
þ ¼ 0, (6.2)
vx vy
! !
vu vu vu 1 vp m v2 u v2 u vv vv vv 1 vp m v2 v v2 v
þu þv ¼ þ þ , and þ u þ v ¼ þ þ :
vt vx vy r vx r vx2 vy2 vt vx vy r vx r vx2 vy2
(8.13a, 8.13b)
Here, the boundary conditions are u ¼ U0(t) on y ¼ 0 and u ¼ Uh(t) on y ¼ h(x, t), and the
pressure is presumed to be time dependent as well.
To determine which terms are important and which may be neglected when the passage is
narrow, recast these equations in terms of dimensionless variables:
x' ¼ x=L, y' ¼ y=h ¼ y=3L, t' ¼ Ut=L, u' ¼ u=U, v' ¼ v=3U, and p' ¼ p=Pa , (8.14)
where U is a characteristic velocity of the flow, Pa is atmospheric pressure, and 3 ¼ h/L is the
passage’s fineness ratio (the inverse of its aspect ratio). The goal of this effort is to find a set of
approximate equations that are valid for common lubrication geometries where 3 ( 1 and the
flow is unsteady. Because of the passage geometry, the magnitude of v is expected to be much
less than the magnitude of u and gradients along the passage, v/vx ~ 1/L, are expected to be
much smaller than gradients across it, v/vy ~ 1/h. These expectations have been incorpo-
rated into the dimensionless scaling (8.14). Combining (6.2), (8.13), and (8.14) leads to the
following dimensionless equations:
vu' vv'
þ ¼ 0, (8.15)
vx' vy'
2 '
vu' ' '- 1 vp' v2 u '
,
' vu ' vu 2v u
32 ReL þ u þ v ¼ þ 3 þ , and
vt' vx' vy' L vx' vx'2 vy'2
(8.16a, 8.16b)
v 2 v' v2 v '
, ' ' '-
vv ' vv ' vv 1 vp'
34 ReL '
þ u '
þ v '
¼ '
þ 34 '2 þ 32 '2 ,
vt vx vy L vy vx vy
where ReL ¼ rUL/m, and L ¼ mUL/Pah2 is the ratio of the viscous and pressure forces on
a fluid element; it is sometimes called the bearing number. All the dimensionless derivative