CL 202

Fluid Mechanics

Instructors: Dr. Amit Kumar and Dr. Raghvendra Gupta

Department of Chemical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

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Continuum Hypothesis

Image from Fox and McDonald (2015)

Fluids appear continuous but are made For small volumes,

up of discrete molecules i.e. mass is not density (and other fluid
continuously distributed in space. properties) fluctuate but
become steady above a
certain volume
Therefore, in this course we can treat fluid as a continuum
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Continuum Hypothesis
How small is small?

𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝜆

𝐾𝑛𝑢𝑑𝑠𝑒𝑛 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝐾𝑛 =
𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝑠𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚 𝐿

 L : Can be typically taken as the smallest significant dimension of the fluid system
 𝜆 : average distance travelled by a molecule between two successive collisions
 Typically, for Kn < 0.1, fluid can be treated as continuum
 Typically, in liquids L > 4 nm is a good criteria (Deen 2016)
 For gases, L > 1 micron at ambient conditions
 For rarefied gases (low pressure) L is significantly large
 One should examine the validity at small scales- micro and nanofluidics

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No-slip condition

 No relative motion between the wall and the fluid layer adjacent to it
 The tangential fluid velocity on a stationary wall surface is zero
 Whereas on a moving wall, it is equal to that of the wall.
 This is an experimental observation
 Observed to be valid in Newtonian fluids for system length scales greater
than 1 micron.
 Exceptions: moving contact lines and certain non-Newtonian fluids

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System and Control Volume
In thermodynamics, systems can be identified based on the transfer of heat and mass
to/from the system :
 Isolated system- No transfer of heat and mass to and from the system boundary
 Closed system- No mass transfer but heat transfer can happen
 Open system- Both mass and heat can transfer
Fox and McDonald define System and Control volume
System:
 Analogous to closed system in thermodynamics
 A fixed identifiable quantity of mass, also called control mass
 No mass crosses the system boundaries
 Boundaries can be movable or fixed i.e. can deform Image from Fox and McDonald (2015)

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System and Control Volume
Control volume
 Analogous to open system in thermodynamics
 An arbitrary, imaginary/fictitious volume is space through which the matter flow
 Can be fixed or moving with a constant velocity
 Boundaries of CV: control surface- not necessarily real

Image from Fox and McDonald (2015)

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 Approaches to analyse fluid mechanics problems

Dimensional Analysis Integral Analysis Differential Analysis

 A simple but powerful
technique
 Can be used to extract trend
from experimental data
 Useful in scale-up
 Control volume analysis
 Gross behaviour of the
device
 Force, torque on a body,
mass flow rate, rate of
heat/mass transfer
 Ex.: Average velocity in a
pipe, Force caused by
 Infinitesimal system
 Detailed knowledge of the
flow- v(x,y,z,t)
 Differential equations
 Ex.: Velocity profile in a
pipe, shear stress and
pressure distribution over
a sphere

Image from Ch 3, MIT Opencourseware Image from Fox and McDonald, 2015

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Lagrangian and Eulerian Description

Image from http://www.flowillustrator.com/fluid-dynamics/basics/lagrangian-eulerian-viewpoints.php

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Lagrangian and Eulerian Description

Lagrangian Description:
 Follow motion of individual fluid particles
 Common in analysis motion of solid mechanics
 Appropriate to analyse motion of discrete fluid particles e.g. liquid droplets
Eulerian Description:
 Properties of flow are described as a function of space and time
 Field description
 Suited for a analyzing continuous media
 Control volume analysis

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Lagrangian and Eulerian Description

Image from Shadloo et al., 2016

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 Velocity field

 Field: A quantity that has a value at each point in time and space (continuum)

 Velocity 𝑣(𝑥,
Ԧ 𝑦, 𝑧, 𝑡) 𝑜𝑟 𝒗(x, y, z, t) is a vector quantity

෡
𝒗 x, y, z, t = 𝑢 x, y, z, t 𝒊Ƹ + 𝑣 x, y, z, t 𝒋Ƹ + 𝑤 x, y, z, t 𝒌

 Indicates the velocity of a fluid particle that is at point P(x, y, z) at time t in Eulerian

description

 P(x,y,z) are coordinate of a point fixed in space not the position of the fluid particle

𝜕𝒗
 Steady flow: 𝜕𝑡 = 0

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 Stress Field

The force acting on the particle can be:

 Body forces
 Gravity, electromagnetic force
 Force per unit volume or per unit mass
 Surface forces
 Pressure, friction Image from Fox and McDonald (2015)
 Act on the boundary Contact force 𝜹𝑭 on the surface of a
 How the force is transmitted fluid particle (outward unit normal 𝒏ෝ)
throughout the medium in contact with another fluid particle.
 Concept of stress
 Stress defined as force per unit area

𝛿𝐹𝑛 𝛿𝐹𝑡
Normal stress 𝜎𝑛 = lim ; Shear (tangential) stress 𝜏𝑛 = lim
𝛿𝐴𝑛 →0 𝛿𝐴𝑛 𝛿𝐴𝑛 →0 𝛿𝐴𝑛

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 Stress Field

𝛿𝐹𝑦
𝜏𝑥𝑦 = lim
𝛿𝐴𝑥 →0 𝛿𝐴𝑥
Direction in which the stress acts
Plane on which the stress acts

Image from Fox and McDonald (2015)

 An infinite number of planes can pass through a point-

 An infinite number of stresses at a point
 The stress at a point can be described completely by specifying stresses acting on any three
mutually perpendicular planes passing through the point
 Second order tensor
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 Stress Field

 The stress at a point has nine components

 Sign convention for stress:

 Positive when the direction of stress
component and that of the normal on the
plane both are positive or both are
negative.

Image from Fox and McDonald (2015)

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