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Derivation of The Navier
Derivation of The Navier
Derivation of The Navier
The intent of this article is to highlight the important points of the derivation of the Navier–
Stokes equations as well as the application and formulation for different families of fluids.
Basic assumptions
The Navier–Stokes equations are based on the assumption that the fluid, at the scale of interest,
is a continuum, in other words is not made up of discrete particles but rather a continuous
substance. Another necessary assumption is that all the fields of interest
like pressure, velocity, density, temperature and so on are differentiable, weakly at least.
The equations are derived from the basic principles of conservation of mass, momentum,
and energy. For that matter, sometimes it is necessary to consider a finite arbitrary volume,
called acontrol volume, over which these principles can be applied. This finite volume is denoted
by and its bounding surface . The control volume can remain fixed in space or can move
with the fluid.
Changes in properties of a moving fluid can be measured in two different ways. One can
measure a given property by either carrying out the measurement on a fixed point in space as
particles of the fluid pass by, or by following a parcel of fluid along its streamline. The
derivative of a field with respect to a fixed position in space is called the Eulerian derivative
while the derivative following a moving parcel is called the advective or material derivative.
where is the velocity of the fluid. The first term on the right-hand side of the equation is the
ordinary Eulerian derivative (i.e. the derivative on a fixed reference frame, representing changes
at a point with respect to time) whereas the second term represents changes of a quantity with
respect to position (see advection). This "special" derivative is in fact the ordinary derivative of a
function of many variables along a path following the fluid motion; it may be derived through
application of the chain rule in which all independent variables are checked for change along the
path (i.e. thetotal derivative).
[edit]Conservation laws
The Navier–Stokes equation is a special case of the (general) continuity equation. It, and
associated equations such as mass continuity, may be derived from conservation principles of:
Mass
Momentum
Energy.
This is done via the Reynolds transport theorem, an integral relation stating that the sum of the
changes of some intensive property (call it ) defined over a control volume must be equal to
what is lost (or gained) through the boundaries of the volume plus what is created/consumed by
sources and sinks inside the control volume. This is expressed by the following integral equation:
where v is the velocity of the fluid and represents the sources and sinks in the fluid. Recall
that represents the control volume and its bounding surface.
Applying Leibniz's rule to the integral on the left and then combining all of the integrals:
The integral must be zero for any control volume; this can only be true if the integrand itself is
zero, so that:
From this valuable relation (a very generic continuity equation), three important concepts may be
concisely written: conservation of mass, conservation of momentum, and conservation of energy.
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Validity is retained if is a vector, in which case the vector-vector product in the second term
will be a dyad.
Conservation of momentum
The most elemental form of the Navier–Stokes equations is obtained when the conservation
relation is applied to momentum. Writing momentum as gives:
where is a dyad, a special case of tensor product, which results in a second rank tensor;
the divergence of a second rank tensor is again a vector (a first rank tensor). [1] Noting that a body
force (notated ) is a source or sink of momentum (per volume) and expanding the derivatives
completely:
Note that the gradient of a vector is a special case of the covariant derivative, the operation
results in second rank tensors;[1] except in Cartesian coordinates, it's important to understand that
this isn't simply an element by element gradient. Rearranging and recognizing
that :
The leftmost expression enclosed in parentheses is, by mass continuity (shown in a moment),
equal to zero. Noting that what remains on the right side of the equation is the convective
derivative:
This appears to simply be an expression of Newton's second law (F = ma) in terms of body
forces instead of point forces. Each term in any case of the Navier–Stokes equations is a body
force. A shorter though less rigorous way to arrive at this result would be the application of
the chain rule to acceleration:
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where . The reason why this is "less rigorous" is that we haven't shown that
picking is correct; however it does make sense since with that choice of
path the derivative is "following" a fluid "particle", and in order for Newton's second law to
work, forces must be summed following a particle. For this reason the convective derivative is
also known as the particle derivative.
Conservation of mass
Mass may be considered also. Taking (no sources or sinks of mass) and putting in
density:
where is the mass density (mass per unit volume), and is the velocity of the fluid. This
equation is called the mass continuity equation, or simply "the" continuity equation. This
equation generally accompanies the Navier–Stokes equation.
In the case of an incompressible fluid, is a constant and the equation reduces to:
The generic body force seen previously is made specific first by breaking it up into two new
terms, one to describe forces resulting from stresses and one for "other" forces such as gravity.
By examining the forces acting on a small cube in a fluid, it may be shown that
where is the Cauchy stress tensor, and accounts for other body forces present. This equation
is called the Cauchy momentum equation and describes the non-relativistic momentum
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conservation of any continuum that conserves mass. is a rank two symmetric tensor given by
its covariant components:
where the are normal stresses and shear stresses. This tensor is split up into two terms:
where is the 3 x 3 identity matrix and is the deviatoric stress tensor. Note that
the pressure π is equal to minus the mean normal stress:[2]
The motivation for doing this is that pressure is typically a variable of interest, and also this
simplifies application to specific fluid families later on since the rightmost tensor in the
equation above must be zero for a fluid at rest. Note that is traceless. The Navier–Stokes
equation may now be written in the most general form:
This equation is still incomplete. For completion, one must make hypotheses on the forms of
and , that is, one needs a constitutive law for the stress tensor which can be obtained for
specific fluid families and on the pressure; additionally, if the flow is assumed compressible an
equation of state will be required, which will likely further require a conservation of energy
formulation.
The general form of the equations of motion is not "ready for use", the stress tensor is still
unknown so that more information is needed; this information is normally some knowledge of
the viscous behavior of the fluid. For different types of fluid flow this results in specific forms of
the Navier–Stokes equations.
Newtonian fluid
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Compressible Newtonian fluid
The formulation for Newtonian fluids stems from an observation made by Newton that, for most
fluids,
In order to apply this to the Navier–Stokes equations, three assumptions were made by Stokes:
That is, the deviatoric of the deformation rate tensor is identified to the deviatoric of the stress
tensor, up to a factor μ.
A straightforward substitution of into the momentum conservation equation will yield
the Navier–Stokes equations for a compressible Newtonian fluid:
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or, more compactly in vector form,
where the transpose has been used. Gravity has been accounted for as "the" body force,
ie . The associated mass continuity equation is:
In addition to this equation, an equation of state and an equation for the conservation of energy is
needed. The equation of state to use depends on context (often the ideal gas law), the
conservation of energy will read:
Here, is the enthalpy, is the temperature, and is a function representing the dissipation of
energy due to viscous effects:
With a good equation of state and good functions for the dependence of parameters (such as
viscosity) on the variables, this system of equations seems to properly model the dynamics of all
known gases and most liquids.
For the special (but very common) case of incompressible flow, the momentum equations
simplify significantly. Taking into account the following assumptions:
then looking at the viscous terms of the momentum equation for example we have:
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Similarly for the and momentum directions we have and .o
Non-Newtonian fluids
A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid whose flow properties differ in any way from those
of Newtonian fluids. Most commonly the viscosity of non-Newtonian fluids is not independent
of shear rate or shear rate history. However, there are some non-Newtonian fluids with shear-
independent viscosity, that nonetheless exhibit normal stress-differences or other non-Newtonian
behaviour. Many saltsolutions and molten polymers are non-Newtonian fluids, as are many
commonly found substances such as ketchup, custard, toothpaste, starch
suspensions, paint, blood, and shampoo. In a Newtonian fluid, the relation between the shear
stress and the shear rate is linear, passing through the origin, the constant of proportionality
being the coefficient of viscosity. In a non-Newtonian fluid, the relation between the shear stress
and the shear rate is different, and can even be time-dependent. The study of the non-Newtonian
fluids is usually called rheology. A few examples are given here.
Bingham fluid
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These are fluids capable of bearing some shear before they start flowing. Some common
examples are toothpaste and clay.
Power-law fluid
This form is useful for approximating all sorts of general fluids, including shear thinning (such as
latex paint) and shear thickening (such as corn starch water mixture).
In the analysis of a flow, it is often desirable to reduce the number of equations or the number of
variables being dealt with, or both. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equation with mass
continuity (four equations in four unknowns) can, in fact, be reduced to a single equation with a
single dependent variable in 2D, or one vector equation in 3D. This is enabled by two vector
calculus identities:
for any differentiable scalar and vector . The first identity implies that any term in the
Navier-Stokes equation that may be represented as the gradient of a scalar will disappear when
the curlof the equation is taken. Commonly, pressure and gravity are what eliminate, resulting in
(this is true in 2D as well as 3D):
where it's assumed that all body forces are describable as gradients (true for gravity), and density
has been divided so that viscosity becomes kinematic viscosity.
The second vector calculus identity above states that the divergence of the curl of a vector field
is zero. Since the (incompressible) mass continuity equation specifies the divergence of velocity
being zero, we can replace the velocity with the curl of some vector so that mass continuity is
always satisfied:
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So, as long as velocity is represented through , mass continuity is unconditionally
satisfied. With this new dependent vector variable, the Navier-Stokes equation (with curl taken
as above) becomes a single fourth order vector equation, no longer containing the unknown
pressure variable and no longer dependent on a separate mass continuity equation:
Apart from containing fourth order derivatives, this equation is fairly complicated, and is thus
uncommon. Note that if the cross differentiation is left out, the result is a third order vector
equation containing an unknown vector field (the gradient of pressure) that may be determined
from the same boundary conditions that one would apply to the fourth order equation above.
The true utility of this formulation is seen when the flow is two dimensional in nature and the
equation is written in a general orthogonal coordinate system, in other words a system where the
basis vectors are orthogonal. Note that this by no means limits application to Cartesian
coordinates, in fact most of the common coordinates systems are orthogonal, including familiar
ones likecylindrical and obscure ones like toroidal.
The 3D velocity is expressed as (note that the discussion has been coordinate free up till now):
where are basis vectors, not necessarily constant and not necessarily normalized, and are
velocity components; let also the coordinates of space be .
Now suppose that the flow is 2D. This doesn't mean the flow is in a plane, rather it means that
the component of velocity in one direction is zero and the remaining components are
independent of the same direction. In that case (take component 3 to be zero):
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but this must simplify in some way also since the flow is assumed 2D. If orthogonal coordinates
are assumed, the curl takes on a fairly simple form, and the equation above expanded becomes:
Examining this equation shows that we can set and retain equality with no loss
of generality, so that:
the significance here is that only one component of remains, so that 2D flow becomes a
problem with only one dependent variable. The cross differentiated Navier–Stokes equation
becomes two 0 = 0 equations and one meaningful equation.
The remaining component is called the stream function. The equation for can
simplify since a variety of quantities will now equal zero, for example:
if the scale factors and also are independent of . Also, from the definition of the vector
Laplacian
Manipulating the cross differentiated Navier–Stokes equation using the above two equations and
a variety of identities[4] will eventually yield the 1D scalar equation for the stream function:
where is the biharmonic operator. This is very useful because it is a single self contained
scalar equation that describes both momentum and mass conservation in 2D. The only other
equations that this partial differential equation needs are initial and boundary conditions.
The assumptions for the stream function equation are listed below:
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The flow is incompressible and Newtonian.
Coordinates are orthogonal.
Flow is 2D:
The first two scale factors of the coordinate system are independent of the last
The derivation of the Navier-Stokes equation involves the consideration of forces acting on fluid
elements, so that a quantity called the stress tensor appears naturally in the Cauchy momentum
equation. Since the divergence of this tensor is taken, it is customary to write out the equation
fully simplified, so that the original appearance of the stress tensor is lost.
However, the stress tensor still has some important uses, especially in formulating boundary
conditions at fluid interfaces. Recalling that , for a Newtonian fluid the stress
tensor is:
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is the strain rate tensor, by definition:
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