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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.
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]
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.
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.
where S T, T T denote the salinity and temperature at top layer, S B, T B denote the salinity and temperature at bottom layer, Ra is the Rayleigh Number, and Pr is the Prandtl Number. The sign of Ra S and Ra T will change depending on whether it stabilizes or destabilizes the system.
The parameter is known as the Froude number, and is defined as: = where is the mean velocity, is the characteristic length scale for a channel's depth, and is the gravitational acceleration. Depending on the effect of viscosity relative to inertia, as represented by the Reynolds number , the flow can be either laminar , turbulent , or ...
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Reynolds’ 1883 experiment on fluid dynamics in pipes Reynolds’ 1883 observations of the nature of the flow in his experiments. In 1883 Osborne Reynolds demonstrated the transition to turbulent flow in a classic experiment in which he examined the behaviour of water flow under different flow rates using a small jet of dyed water introduced into the centre of flow in a larger pipe.