ME – 233: Fluid Mechanics – II

Dr. Emad Uddin

From the Navier–Stokes Equations
 General motion of an incompressible Newtonian fluid is
governed by
 the continuity equation
 the momentum equation
 For steady, fully developed flow in a pipe, the velocity
contains only an axial component, which is a function of
only the radial coordinate.
 For such conditions, the left-hand side of momentum Eq.
is zero.
From the Navier–Stokes Equations
 The Navier –Stokes equations become.

 In polar coordinates
From Dimensional Analysis
 We assume that the pressure drop in the horizontal pipe, is
a function of
 the average velocity of the fluid in the pipe, V,
 the length of the pipe, l
 the pipe diameter, D
 the viscosity of the fluid, μ

 The density or the specific weight of the fluid are not

important parameters.
From Dimensional Analysis
 There are five variables that can be described in terms of
three reference dimensions M, L, T.
 This flow can be described in terms of, k – r = 5
 5-3 = 2 dimensionless groups.
 These are

 The value of C must be determined by theory or

experiment.
 For a round pipe, For ducts of other cross-sectional shapes, the
value of C is different
Fully developed turbulent flow
 Turbulent pipe flow is more likely to occur than laminar
flow in practical situations
 A considerable amount of knowledge about the topic has
been developed, the field of turbulent flow still remains
one of the least understood area of fluid mechanics.
Fully developed turbulent flow
 Reynolds number must be less than approx. 2100 for laminar
flow and greater than approx. 4000 for turbulent flow.
Transition from Laminar to Turbulent Flow
 Its irregular, random nature is the distinguishing feature of
turbulent flows.
 The character of many of the important properties of the
flow (pressure drop, heat transfer, etc.) depends strongly
on the existence and nature of the turbulent fluctuations or
randomness indicated.
 Transition from Laminar to Turbulent Flow
 Mixing, heat and mass transfer processes
are enhanced in turbulent flow compared to
laminar flow.
 The macroscopic scale of the randomness in
turbulent flow is very effective in
transporting energy and mass throughout
the flow field, thereby increasing the
various rate processes involved.
 Laminar flow, is very small but finitesized
fluid particles flowing smoothly in levels,
one over another.
 The only randomness and mixing take place
on the molecular scale and result in
relatively small heat, mass, and momentum
transfer rates.
Turbulent shear stress
 Axial component of velocity, u = u(t), at a given location
in turbulent pipe flow is.
Turbulent shear stress
 The fundamental difference between laminar and turbulent
flow lies in the chaotic, random behavior of the various
fluid parameters.
 Such flows can be described in terms of their mean values
(denoted with an overbar) on which are superimposed the
fluctuations (denoted with a prime).
 Thus, if u, u(x, y, z, t) is the x component of instantaneous
velocity, then its time mean (or time average) value, ū , is;

 The time interval, T, is considerably longer than the period of

the longest fluctuations
 And considerably shorter than any unsteadiness of the average
velocity
Turbulent shear stress
 Can the concept of viscous shear stress for laminar flow
( ) to that of turbulent flow by replacing u, the
instantaneous velocity, by ū, the time average velocity ?
 The shear stress in turbulent flow is not merely proportional to
the gradient of the time average velocity:
 It also contains a contribution due to the random fluctuations of
the components of velocity
Turbulent shear stress
 The shear stress for turbulent flow in terms of a new
parameter called the eddy viscosity, η.

 The eddy viscosity changes from one turbulent flow

condition to another and from one point in a turbulent
flow to another.
 The turbulent process could be viewed as the random
transport of bundles of fluid particles over a certain
distance, lm, the mixing length, from a region of one
velocity to another region of a different velocity.
Turbulent shear stress
 By the use of some ad hoc assumptions and physical reasoning,
the eddy viscosity is then given by.

 The problem is shifted to determining the mixing length, lm which is

not constant throughout the flow field.
 Near a solid surface the turbulence is dependent on the distance from
the surface.
 Thus, additional assumptions are made regarding how the
mixing length varies throughout the flow.
 There is no general model that can predict the shear stress
throughout an incompressible, viscous turbulent flow.
 It is impossible to integrate the force balance equation to obtain
the turbulent velocity profile as was done for laminar flow.
Turbulent Velocity Profile
 An often-used correlation is the
empirical power-law velocity profile. ‘n’
is a function of the Reynolds number,
typically from 6 to 10.
 The power-law profile cannot be valid near
the wall, since according to this equation
the velocity gradient is infinite there.
 In addition, it cannot be precisely valid
near the centerline because it does not give
dū/dr = 0 at r = 0.
 However, it does provide a reasonable
approximation to the measured velocity
profiles across most of the pipe.
Turbulence modeling
 It is not yet possible to theoretically predict the random,
irregular details of turbulent flows.
 One can time average the governing Navier–Stokes
equations to obtain equations for the average velocity and
pressure.
 The resulting time-averaged differential equations contain
not only the desired average pressure and velocity as
variables, but also averages of products of the
fluctuations—terms of the type that one tried to eliminate
by averaging the equations!
Chaos and turbulence
 Chaos theory, which is quite complex and is currently
under development, involves the behavior of nonlinear
dynamical systems and their response to initial and
boundary conditions.
 The flow of a viscous fluid, which is governed by the
nonlinear Navier–Stokes equations, may be such a system.
 It may be that chaos theory can provide the turbulence
properties and structure directly from the governing
equations.
Dimensional Analysis of pipe flow
 Turbulent flow can be a very complex, difficult topic,
most turbulent pipe flow analyses are based on
experimental data and semi-empirical formulas.
 These data are expressed conveniently in dimensionless
form.
 It is often necessary to determine the head loss, hL, that
occurs in a pipe flow so that the following equation, can
be used in the analysis of pipe flow problems.
Dimensional Analysis of pipe flow
 The overall head loss for the pipe system hL, consists of
 the head loss due to viscous effects in the straight pipes, termed
the major loss and denoted hL major, and

 the head loss in the various pipe components, termed the minor
loss and denoted hL minor,
Dimensional Analysis of pipe flow
 Major losses
 The pressure drop and head loss in a pipe are dependent on the
wall shear stress, τw, between the fluid and pipe surface.

 Difference b/w laminar and turbulent flow is:

 The shear stress for turbulent flow is a function of the density of the
fluid,

 The shear stress for laminar flow, is independent of the density,

leaving the viscosity, as the only important fluid property.
Dimensional Analysis of pipe flow
 Major losses
 The pressure drop, Δp for steady, incompressible
turbulent flow in a horizontal round pipe of
diameter D is:

 The pressure drop for laminar pipe flow is found to

be independent of the roughness of the pipe,
 But it is necessary to include this parameter when
considering turbulent flow.
 Dimensional Analysis of pipe flow
 Major losses
 A relatively thin viscous sublayer is formed in
the fluid near the pipe wall in turbulent flow
 Thus for turbulent flow the pressure drop is
expected to be a function of the wall roughness.

 Relatively small roughness elements have

completely negligible effects on laminar pipe
flow.

 For pipes with very large wall “roughness” such

as that in corrugated pipes, the flowrate may be
a function of the “roughness”.

 We will consider only typical constant diameter

pipes with relative roughness in the range
 Dimensional Analysis of pipe flow
 Major losses
 The pressure drop, Δp can be expressed in terms of k –
r = 4 dimensionless groups.

 This result differs from that used for laminar flow in

two ways.
 the pressure term is made dimensionless by dividing by
the dynamic pressure, rather than a characteristic viscous
shear stress,

 we have introduced two additional dimensionless

parameters, the Reynolds number, and the relative
roughness, which are not present in the laminar
formulation.