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Defining equation SI units Dimension Flow velocity vector field u = (,) m s −1 [L][T] −1: Velocity pseudovector ... Equations Fluid statics, pressure gradient:
In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids – liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of water and other liquids in motion).
In aerodynamics, air is assumed to be a Newtonian fluid, which posits a linear relationship between the shear stress (due to internal friction forces) and the rate of strain of the fluid. The equation above is a vector equation in a three-dimensional flow, but it can be expressed as three scalar equations in three coordinate directions.
ρ (Greek letter rho) is the fluid mass density (e.g. in kg/m 3), and; u is the flow speed in m/s. It can be thought of as the fluid's kinetic energy per unit volume. For incompressible flow, the dynamic pressure of a fluid is the difference between its total pressure and static pressure. From Bernoulli's law, dynamic pressure is given by
Compressible flow (or gas dynamics) is the branch of fluid mechanics that deals with flows having significant changes in fluid density.While all flows are compressible, flows are usually treated as being incompressible when the Mach number (the ratio of the speed of the flow to the speed of sound) is smaller than 0.3 (since the density change due to velocity is about 5% in that case). [1]
Fluid motion is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations, a set of coupled and nonlinear partial differential equations derived from the basic laws of conservation of mass, momentum and energy. The unknowns are usually the flow velocity , the pressure and density and temperature .
Substituting this result into the curl-divergence equation yields = (i.e., the flow is incompressible). In summary, the stream function for two-dimensional plane flow exists if and only if the flow is incompressible.
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.