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The Reynolds number is the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces within a fluid that is subjected to relative internal movement due to different fluid velocities. A region where these forces change behavior is known as a boundary layer, such as the bounding surface in the interior of a pipe.
The Reynolds number (Re) is a dimensionless quantity that is commonly used in fluid dynamics and engineering. [6] [7] Originally described by George Gabriel Stokes in 1850, it became popularized by Osborne Reynolds after whom the concept was named by Arnold Sommerfeld in 1908. [7] [8] [9] The Reynolds number is calculated as:
A key tool used to determine the stability of a flow is the Reynolds number (Re), first put forward by George Gabriel Stokes at the start of the 1850s. Associated with Osborne Reynolds who further developed the idea in the early 1880s, this dimensionless number gives the ratio of inertial terms and viscous terms. [4]
Dimensionless numbers (or characteristic numbers) have an important role in analyzing the behavior of fluids and their flow as well as in other transport phenomena. [1] They include the Reynolds and the Mach numbers, which describe as ratios the relative magnitude of fluid and physical system characteristics, such as density, viscosity, speed of sound, and flow speed.
The Reynolds and Womersley Numbers are also used to calculate the thicknesses of the boundary layers that can form from the fluid flow’s viscous effects. The Reynolds number is used to calculate the convective inertial boundary layer thickness that can form, and the Womersley number is used to calculate the transient inertial boundary thickness that can form.
In engineering, the Moody chart or Moody diagram (also Stanton diagram) is a graph in non-dimensional form that relates the Darcy–Weisbach friction factor f D, Reynolds number Re, and surface roughness for fully developed flow in a circular pipe. It can be used to predict pressure drop or flow rate down such a pipe.
The magnetic Reynolds number has a similar form to both the Péclet number and the Reynolds number. All three can be regarded as giving the ratio of advective to diffusive effects for a particular physical field and have the form of the product of a velocity and a length divided by a diffusivity.
A turbulent flow in a fluid is defined by the critical Reynolds number, for a closed pipe this works out to approximately R e c ≈ 2000. {\displaystyle \mathrm {Re} _{\text{c}}\approx 2000.} In terms of the critical Reynolds number, the critical velocity is represented as