Low

Speed Aerodynamics
ASE 320
Lecture 2: Basics of fluids, fluid
properties and fields
 Classification of Materials
Ø Solids : “Rigid”, Strong Intermolecular forces,
retain shape
Ø Fluids : “Non-Rigid”, Deform to shape of
container
o Liquids : Weaker Intermolecular forces than
solids
o Gases : Gases have very weak intermolecular
forces and occupy entire container
o Air : Specific class of a “Mixture of Gases”,
79% N2 and 21% O2

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/Images/state.jpg
Examples of Fluids (Liquids and Gases)
• What are some fluids under typical room
conditions?
– Water, air, milk, oil, blood…..
• What are some materials that are not fluids?
– Wood, stone, glass, ice, metal….
• When might these materials also behave as
fluids?
– Wood: when pulverized
– Stone: when heated (magma) or under extreme stress
Glass: over long times (e.g., old windows)
– Ice: under high stress (glaciers, soft ice cream
machines)
– Metal: under high temperatures or stresses, rapid
deformations (ballistic impact).
A more accurate characterization of a fluid
• A fluid is a substance that continues to deform
under the influence of a shear stress (tangential)
Shear stress

time
No slip on surfaces

• The fluid opposes the applied stress as a result of

which a continuous force needs to be applied to
keep the surface in motion
• Caveat : During this course, we will make an
assumption of “inviscid” in many cases, since that
helps understanding certain kinds of flows easy
 Fluid fields
• Any scientific study does one or more of four
things: observe, describe, model and predict
• We need a way to describe the different
properties of the system.
• The general term for the distribution of a given
property in a system is called a “field”

• A field has a specific

value in space and
time, f = f (x,y,z,t)
• Fields can be scalars,
vectors or tensors
 Scalars, Vectors and Tensors
• Scalar fields are described by a single value
(magnitude) at a given instance in time and space
(mass, density, pressure, temperature)
• Vector fields in 3 dimensions require 3 scalar values to
completely describe them (velocity, momentum,
vorticity, force, area).
• Tensor fields are required when a vector acts on
another vector. For example, when a force is applied on
an area, it results in 9 component values, with each
component of force (3) having an effect on each
component of the area (3), resulting in the shear stress
tensor
 Scalar Variables in Aerodynamics

• Density: r, (“Rho”) Mass of the fluid per unit volume

of space as the volume shrinks to zero.
• Temperature: T, A measure of the kinetic energy
associated with the random motion of the molecules
that form the continuous matter.
• Pressure: p, Pressure is defined as the normal force
exerted by the continuous matter on a plane placed
in the fluid, per unit area of the plane.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/
 Pressure
• Pressure always acts normal to the plane.
– For example, when we say that the atmospheric pressure is
101325 Pa at sea level, we are saying that there is a force of
101325 N over a surface of area 1 sq.m, in a direction normal
to every point on the surface
• Gauge pressure is pabs-patmosphere
– It is the difference between pressure at a point and the
atmospheric pressure.
– Many instruments (gauges) measure the pressure difference.
– For instance, a pressure gauge measures the difference
between the pressure inside the tire and outside the tire.
 Properties of Fluid, Viscosity µ
• Air, like most fluids, is sticky (viscous)
• Viscosity, µ is the property of a fluid, not flow. In other words, we
can look it up from a table of fluid properties
• In liquids, it is caused by intermolecular forces.
– When a liquid is heated, the molecules move apart, and the
intermolecular forces decrease.
– Thus viscosity of a liquid decreases with temperature.
• In gases, viscosity is associated with exchange of momentum by
random collision among molecules.
– A slow moving molecule collides with a faster moving
molecule and slows it down. When this happens over millions
of molecules the entire flow slows down.
– In gases, as temperature increases, the energy of the
molecules associated with this random motion increases.
– Thus viscosity increases in gases with temperature.

http://formulas.mathcaptain.com/physics/viscosity-formula.html
 Effect of viscosity
• When a fluid moves past a stationary surface this stickiness
causes the fluid to exert a force in the direction of the motion,
i.e., “dragging” the surface with it
• Newton found that the tangential stress associated with this
motion (stress = force per unit area) is proportional to viscosity.
 Ideal Gases
• An ideal gas consists of a large number
of molecules, which are in random
motion and obey Newton's laws of
motion
• The volume of the molecules is
negligibly small compared to the volume
occupied by the gas;
• No forces act on the molecules except
during elastic collisions of negligible
duration.
• These assumptions were used to derive
the ideal gas equation from Kinetic http://clearscience.tumblr.com/post/729199399/to-

theory of gases in the 1800s. consider-absolute-zero-lets-mention-an-ideal

• However, elements of the assumption

were seen well before that in the 1600s
and 1700s by Boyle, Bernoulli etc.
 Equation of State for an Ideal Gas

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/shortp.html
 Vector and Tensor Variables in
Aerodynamics
!
• Velocity: V , Velocity of a fluid particle (i.e. a large
collection of molecules treated as a continuum) is
a vector. It has three components (u,v,w) in the
three directions.
!
• Momentum: ρV
!
• Vorticity : ∇xV
http://vis.lbl.gov/NERSC/Software/pvwave/docs/pvw
avehtmlhelp/waveref/files/c2u_v-2-68.gif

• Stress Tensor
 Concept of Continuum
• Air is made of particles -
molecules.
• We are tempted to treat each of
these particles individually, and
study its motion as Newton did.
• This approach fails when there are
millions of particles to deal with,
which randomly collide with each
other millions of times per http://myweb.fcu.edu.tw/~pwhwang/flui
dmechanics1/chap2.pdf
second.

• When we deal with such large number of particles, we can describe their
characteristics only in terms of statistical averages.
• In other words, we treat the fluid as a continuous medium, which has
certain average properties at any point in space and time.
 Mean Free Path
lmfp

http://image.wikifoundry.com/image/3/DFYu
42X5c3zpcqbI4VYGYQ44002/GW319H302

• Mean free path is defined as the average distance that an air molecule will travel
before it collides with another particle.
• In gases, under normal conditions (e.g. low altitudes), the mean free path is very low
(of the order of microns) compared to the characteristic dimensions of the vehicle.
– Knudsen Number = Mean free path/Vehicle Dimension
– Knudsen number is thus very low at low altitudes
• Concept of continuum works well under such conditions.
• At high altitudes, under rarefied conditions, this concept fails. The molecules must be
treated as individual particles.
 Properties of Flow: Summary
• The most important variables of a flow at any
point (x,y,z) at any time t, in any fluid application
are: r, p, T, and velocity V (which has three
components in a 3D flow)
• Since there are 6 unknowns, we need 6 equations
to describe fluid flow.
• Viscosity µ(T) is a function of temperature, and
alters the flow properties.
• Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics give us the
tools we need for predicting these properties.
 Modeling and Prediction of Flows
Just about any complicated engineering problem can
be modeled by using some fundamental physical laws
to solve for r, p, T, and velocity V

• Conservation of mass
• Newton’s second law (momentum) – 3 components
• Conservation of energy
• Equation of state

Over the course of this semester, we will use some of

these basic laws to derive models for aerodynamics