Should I include gravity while doing a

CFD simulation of a vertical pipe, air as a

fluid?
• Before including gravity in your simulations, you should ask yourself
the following question: Will buoyant forces be important in my
simulations?
• Typically, buoyant forces will arise when there are differences in the
fluid density. This type of simulations are useful to evaluate and assess
the natural convection phenomenon or multiphase - multi species type
flow.
• If you’re assuming incompressible and isothermal flow, including
gravity forces probably wont affect very much your results.
Incompressible and compressible flow

• If the flow is compressible, the density is a non-constant function of the pressure, the temperature,
phase, composition, etc. When a fluid particle of some mass dm interacts with neighboring fluid
particles via pressure forces, heat exchange, chemical reaction, etc., it undergoes compression or
dilatation. That is, its specific volume (and thus density, which is the inverse of the sp vol) changes
according to the changing pressure, tempreature, etc., that it encounters. Note that dm is the product
of the density and the volume of the particle, and that the mass dm is a constant in Newtonian physics,
barring nuclear reactions.

If the bulk compressibility of the fluid (the ratio of the change in specific volume to the change in
pressure that causes it; this is a material property of the fluid) is small by comparison with the
pressure variations encountered in the flow under consideration, then these pressure variations will
cause only small changes in the density. Similarly, if the volume coefficient of thermal expansion is
small relative to the temperature variations encountered by a particle, then the temperature variations
will cause only small changes in the density. An incompressible flow is an idealized case, wherein the
variations of pressure, temperature, etc., encountered by a particle cause zero change in the density of
the particle. There is really no such thing as a truly incompressible fluid. In an incompressible flow,
there is no change (with respect to time) in the specific volume (and thus density) of each particle of
fluid. Thus, the density is constant along any given particle pathline (a pathline being the curve traced
out over time by a given particle). However, in general, the density of different particles may be
different from each other, due to the particles being at differing temperatures, of different composition,
or at differing pressures (less likely), etc. Thus, the flow can be incompressible (the density is a
constant along a pathline) and yet display variations in density (the density varies along curves that
cross pathlines). One encounters this in stratified flows, for example. As a particular case, if all the fluid
particles in an incompressible flow have the same density, then the density is constant everywhere in
the flow domain and at all times, and the flow is said to be homochoric, I think. This is the case
typically described in introductory textbooks of fluid mechanics.
• First of all, to add to what I posted before, Anshul makes an excellent point about the role of the Mach
number in indicating the degree of compressibility. The flow equations of an inviscid, non-conducting
fluid can be formally expanded about the incompressible version in powers of the Mach number. This is
a regular perturbation expansion, with the incompressible limit being achieved as the Mach number
becomes zero. The bulk compressibility that I mentioned previously comes into play in determining the
speed of sound, which is the reference speed in the Mach number.

• A few authors may use the term "incompressible" to refer to the situation in which the density is not
changed by changes in the pressure. This reflects the etymology of the term.

However, most writers in fluid mechanics use the term "incompressible" to refer to the density being
constant along a pathline. Notice that the same incongruence in usage occurs in thermodynamics,
where we can speak of a gas in a piston-cylinder combination undergoing compression or expansion at
constant pressure. The change in density and volume is accompanied by temperature changes.
Perhaps a better term would be constant-density flow, or nondilatational flow, but at this point we are
stuck with historic usage. Thus, the combusting flow you mention should be referred to as a
compressible flow.

A careful definition of incompressible flow can be found on pp. 17-26 of the excellent book "Principles
of Ideal-Fluid Aerodynamics" by Krishnamurty Karamcheti