Lecture 20: Midterm Review

ME 351 Winter 2024

Instructor: R. McConkey
Midterm content
Module 1: Describing fluid Module 2: Forces in fluid Module 3: Non-
motion motion dimensional Analysis
1. Definitions 1. Pressure 1. Geometric and dynamic
2. Visualization 2. Hydrostatics similarity
2. Common similarity
3. Vocabulary 3. Surface tension
parameters
4. Eulerian and Lagrangian 4. Shear strain 3. Common
Perspectives 5. Viscosity and friction dimensionless
6. Boundary layers performance
parameters
7. Volumetric strain
4. Buckingham Pi
8. Acceleration Theorem
9. Newton’s second law for a
fluid
Midterm format
Rough % time breakdown:
1. Short answer (20%)
2. Multiple choice (5%)
3. Long answer (75%)
How to study for the midterm
Practice available:
1. Practice Midterm
2. Tutorials (6 tutorials)
3. Homework (5 question sets)

Office hours (ERC 2016):

1. Wednesday, February 21, 10 AM – 11 AM
2. Anytime during reading week and midterm week by appointment
3. Thursday, February 29 (day before midterm) 2-4 PM
4. The TA’s are also happy to meet with you by appointment.

Contact us anytime on Discord or through email if you have questions.

Printout of “key points from last lecture” slides
Key points from Lecture 2
• Fluids:
• Deform continuously under applied shear
• Do not return to their un-deformed shape
• Continuum approximation:
• Properties vary continuously* in space
• Allows us to use calculus
• Fields:
• Pressure, [Pa], is a scalar field
• Velocity, [m/s], is a vector field
Key points from Lecture 3
• Computational methods for visualization:
• Scalars: colour maps
• Vectors: arrows

• Flow lines we can visualize:

• Streamlines: tangent to local velocity field
• Streaklines: loci of particles that passed through a given point
• Pathlines: paths travelled by particles
• All coincide for a steady state flow
Key points from Lecture 4
• Spatial dimensionality:
• Our fields vary along 1, 2, or 3 axes: 1D, 2D, or 3D
• Unteady: changes with time
• Steady: doesn’t change with time
• Laminar: smooth, “layered” flow with little mixing
• Turbulent: chaotic, fluctuations, lots of mixing
• Eulerian perspective: watch a fixed point in space
• Lagrangian perspective: follow fluid parcels
Key points from Lecture 5
• Pressure is a macroscopic effects produced by many molecular collisions
• Pressure acts:
• In compression
• Normal to a surface
• In all directions at a point
• Atmospheric pressure: a type of absolute pressure (referenced to absolute vacuum)
• Gauge pressure: referenced to atmospheric pressure
• Most common pressure definition in engineering
• Force due to pressure on a fluid element:
Key points from Lecture 6
• Isobar: a line of constant pressure
• Specific gravity:

• For a static fluid, with no acceleration:

• Pressure change as we move downward in a static fluid of constant density:

Key points from Lecture 7
• Pascal’s Law: within the same connected fluid, two points at equal height will have
equal pressure
• We can use Pascal’s Law to move within a connected fluid

• Manometry is a pressure measurement technique that calculates pressure from

change of height in a fluid
Key points from Lecture 8
• Pressure force on a surface:

• Applies generally (not just hydrostatics)

• In hydrostatics, we have a equation for P at a given depth, which allows us to
compute this force analytically (integrate differential force/element along surface)
• More generally, use numerical integration (computer)
Key points from Lecture 9
• Rigid body motion changes pressure distribution in a fluid
• For constant linear acceleration, the free surface and isobars become angled
• For rotation of a fluid, the free surface becomes a parabola
Key points from Lecture 10
• Force due to surface tension on a cut through an interface surface:

• This force acts tangential to the surface at the cut

• A curved interface requires a pressure differential:

• Contact angle θ:

• θ <90 produces “wetting”, θ > 90 produces “non-wetting”

• Capillary rise in a tube:

Key points from Lecture 11
• Strain rate: rate of shear deformation
• Viscosity tells how a shear stress produces a shear strain rate
• Newtonian fluid:

• Non-Newtonian fluid:

• No-slip means that a shear stress is applied along a “wall”:

• Laminar Couette flow between two plates leads to linear velocity profile:
• dU/dy is constant
• ∴ shear stress τ is constant throughout the fluid
Key points from Lecture 12
• Boundary layer: formed due to no-slip condition and viscous forces between fluid
parcels
• Two types:
• Laminar: low wall shear stress, smooth
• Turbulent: high wall shear stress, lots of mixing
• Local Reynolds number:

• For a smooth flat plate:

• Transition starts (laminar ends) at Re(x) ~ 105,
• Transition ends (turbulent starts) at Re(x) ~ 3 × 106
• We have expressions for thickness δ(x), and skin friction coefficient Cf(x) for laminar
and turbulent boundary layers on a smooth flat plate.
Key points from Lecture 13
• At a fixed x-location, increasing Re(x) decreases the boundary layer thickness
• For fixed free-stream properties, boundary layer thickness increases along x
• Turbulent boundary layers have higher velocity gradient at the wall, which produces
higher wall shear stress
• Drag force on a flat plate of length L:

• Sometimes, a reduction in total drag can be achieved by inducing a turbulent

boundary layer
• Skin-friction drag is increased by a more turbulent boundary layer, but pressure
drag is reduced due to delayed separation.
Key points from Lecture 14
• Volumetric strain rate: rate of change of volume, per unit volume

• Difference in velocity stretches/shrinks volume along that axis

• For an incompressible fluid, the volumetric strain rate is zero (volume of a fluid
parcel is conserved)
• Divergence operator: represents sources/sinks

• Since there are no mass sources/sinks, for a fluid with constant density
(incompressible fluid), there are no volume sources/sinks.
Key points from Lecture 15
• Material derivative: if we take the material derivative of some Eulerian field of a
quantity, we get the time-rate-of-change of that quantity in a Lagrangian perspective

• Total ROC per unit time =

local ROC per unit time
+ local ROC per unit space × how much space we move through per unit time
• We can take the material derivative of any Eulerian field
• If we take the material derivative of the velocity field, we get acceleration
• Material derivative definition arises from chain rule in calculus
Key points from Lecture 16
• Navier-Stokes Equations: Continuity equation (conservation of mass) + Newton’s
second law for a fluid (conservation of momentum)

• Surface forces: pressure and viscosity

• Body force: gravity
• 4 equations (continuity + 3 momentum), 4 unknowns (U, V, W, P)
Key points from Lecture 17
• Geometric similarity: scale model with same flow direction
• Dynamic similarity: match relevant similarity parameters
• Reynolds number:

• Mach number:

• If geometric and dynamic similarity are satisfied, then non-dimensional performance

parameters from the test will match full-scale design
Key points from Lecture 18
• Overall idea behind dimensional analysis: predict design scale performance
1. Test scale model
2. Get experimental dimensional performance
3. Calculate non-performance parameters
4. Re-dimensionalize using design scale parameters*
* Requires similarity between design/test scales
• Incomplete similarity: if performance parameters are independent of some similarity
parameters, we don’t have to match similarity parameters
• e.g. not matching Mach number for incompressible flows
• e.g. Reynolds number independence of drag coefficient
Key points from Lecture 19
• Buckingham Pi Theorem: simplify a problem of n variables of j dimensions to a
problem of k dimensionless variables, where k = n – j
• Doesn’t tell us the functional form of the relationship, just which non-dimensional
variables it contains
Solution steps:
1. List variables involved.
2. List dimensions of each variable.
3. Determine j.
4. Select j repeating parameters.
5. Form the k Pi-groups by adding one remaining variable at a time to the repeating
parameters.
6. State the non-dimensional relationship.