fluid dynamics - What is bulk viscosity and how does it affect the flow?

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What is bulk viscosity and how does it affect the flow? [closed]

What is bulk viscosity and how does it affect the flow?

Explain the idea of introducing such a term in the Navier-Stokes equation.

What are the consequences if not taken into account?

fluid-dynamics viscosity

edited Oct 4 '13 at 21:12 asked Oct 4 '13 at 6:32

Qmechanic ♦ user29561
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closed as off-topic by John Rennie, Emilio Pisanty, ja72, Waffle's Crazy Peanut, user10851 Oct 9 '13 at 4:41
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1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscosity#Bulk_viscosity – John Rennie Oct 4 '13 at 9:18

1 Answer

This is an excellent question and requires more discussion. Therefore, my answer will also have
questions in it for others to weigh in.

Bird and Stewart explain this very well in their Transport Phenomena book. In its general form, the
viscous stresses may be linear combinations of all the velocity gradients in the fluid:

∂vk
∑∑
τij = μijkl
k l
∂xl

where i, j, k , and l may be 1,2,3. If you observe the equation above, there are 81 quantities μijkl which
can be referred to as "viscosity coefficients."

Here is where they start their assumptions.

We do not expect any viscous forces to be present, if the fluid is in a state of pure rotation. This
requirement leads to the necessity that τij be a symmetric combination of the velocity gradients. By
this we mean that if i and j are interchanged, the combination of velocity gradients remains
unchanged. It can be shown that the only symmetric linear combinations of velocity gradients are

∂vj ∂vi ∂vx ∂vy ∂vz

( + )&( + + )δij
∂xi ∂xj ∂x ∂y ∂z

Can this be shown? I have read that the lack of microscopic surface moments ensures that the stress
tensor is a symmetric one but I don't quite understand this point.

If the fluid is isotropic-that is, it has no preferred direction-then the coefficients in front of the two
expressions above must be scalars so that

∂vj ∂vi ∂vx ∂vy ∂vz

τij = A( + ) + B( + + )δij
∂xi ∂xj ∂x ∂y ∂z

So you can see that the number of "viscosity coefficients" from 81 to 2

Finally, by common agreement among most fluid dynamicists the scalar constant B is set equal to
2
3
μ − κ , where κ is called the dilatational viscosity and B is the bulk viscosity or the second
coefficient of viscosnity. The reason for writing B in this way is that it is known from kinetic theory

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that K is identically zero for monatomic gases at low density.

For me this is not a sufficient explanation.I have also seen this refereed to as Stokes hypothesis (which
is based on the fact that the thermodynamic pressure of a fluid is equal to its mechanical pressure).

I think this needs to be further explored. It is also compound by the fact that it is generally not easy to
measure this value experimentally.In addition, the equations of continuum mechanics do not require
any fixed relationship between the two coefficients of viscosity.

what are the consequences if not taken into account.

The precise value of the second coefficient of viscosity is not needed for inviscid flows (both μ and κ are
assumed zero), for incompressible flows, or when the boundary layer approximations are invoked
(normal viscous stresses << shear stresses). Bulk viscosity introduces damping associated with
volumetric straining. Its purpose is to improve the modeling of high-speed dynamic events.

edited Oct 4 '13 at 22:01 answered Oct 4 '13 at 17:27

mcodesmart
2,448 1 10 27

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