114 4.

CONSERVATION LAWS

is found to be accurate in many situations because either the fluid’s my or the flow’s dilata-
tion rate is small. Interesting historical aspects of the Stokes assumption can be found in
Truesdell (1952).
Without using (4.36), the stress tensor (4.31) is:

1
sij ¼ pdij þ 2m Sij  Smm dij þ my Smm dij : (4.37)
3
This linear relation between s and S is consistent with Newton’s definition of the viscosity
coefficient m in a simple parallel flow u(y), for which (4.37) gives a shear stress of
s ¼ m(du/dy). Consequently, a fluid obeying equation (4.37) is called a Newtonian fluid where
m and my may only depend on the local thermodynamic state. The off-diagonal terms of (4.37)
are of the type

vu1 vu2
s12 ¼ m þ ,
vx2 vx1
and directly relate the shear stress to shear strain rate via the viscosity m. The diagonal terms
of (4.37) combine pressure and viscous effects. For example, the first diagonal component of
(4.37) is
 
vu1 2 vum
s11 ¼ p þ 2m þ my  m ,
vx1 3 vxm
which means that the normal viscous stress on a plane normal to the x1-axis is proportional to
the extension rate in the x1 direction and the average expansion rate at the point.
The linear Newtonian friction law (4.37) might only be expected to hold for small strain
rates since it is essentially a first-order expansion of the stress in terms of Sij around
sij ¼ 0. However, the linear relationship is surprisingly accurate for many common fluids
such as air, water, gasoline, and oils. Yet, other liquids display non-Newtonian behavior at
moderate rates of strain. These include solutions containing long-chain polymer molecules,
concentrated soaps, melted plastics, emulsions and slurries containing suspended particles,
and many liquids of biological origin. These liquids may violate Newtonian behavior in
several ways. For example, shear stress may be a nonlinear function of the local strain rate,
which is the case for many liquid plastics that are shear thinning; their viscosity drops with
increasing strain rate. Alternatively, the stress on a non-Newtonian fluid particle may depend
on the local strain rate and on its history. Such memory effects give the fluid some elastic prop-
erties that may allow it to mimic solid behavior over short periods of time. In fact
there is a whole class of viscoelastic substances that are neither fully fluid nor fully solid.
Non-Newtonian fluid mechanics is beyond the scope of this text but its fundamentals are
well covered elsewhere (see Bird et al., 1987).

4.6. NAVIER-STOKES MOMENTUM EQUATION

The momentum conservation equation for a Newtonian fluid is obtained by substituting
(4.37) into Cauchy’s equation (4.24) to obtain:
 4.6. NAVIER-STOKES MOMENTUM EQUATION 115
 " !  #
vuj vuj vp v vuj vui 2 vum
r þ ui ¼  þ rgj þ m þ þ my  m dij , (4.38)
vt vxi vxj vxi vxi vxj 3 vxm

where we have used (vp/vxi)dij ¼ vp/vxj, (3.5) with F ¼ uj, and (3.12). This is the Navier-Stokes
momentum equation. The viscosities, m and my, in this equation can depend on the thermody-
namic state and indeed m, for most fluids, displays a rather strong dependence on tempera-
ture, decreasing with T for liquids and increasing with T for gases. Together, (4.7) and (4.38)
provide 1 þ 3 ¼ 4 scalar equations, and they contain r, p, and uj for 1 þ 1 þ 3 ¼ 5 dependent
variables. Therefore, when combined with suitable boundary conditions, (4.7) and (4.38)
provide a complete description of fluid dynamics when r is constant or when a single
(known) relationship exists between p and r. In the later case, the fluid or the flow is said
to be barotropic. When the relationship between p and r also includes the temperature T,
the internal (or thermal) energy e of the fluid must also be considered. These additions allow
a caloric equation of state to be added to the equation listing, but introduces two more depen-
dent variables, T and e. Thus, in general, a third field equation representing conservation of
energy is needed to fully describe fluid dynamics.
When temperature differences are small within the flow, m and my can be taken outside the
spatial derivative operating on the contents of the [,]-brackets in (4.38), which then reduces to

Duj vp v2 u j 1 v vum
r ¼  þ rgj þ m 2 þ my þ m ðcompressibleÞ: (4.39a)
Dt vxj vxi 3 vxj vxm
For incompressible fluids V$u ¼ vum/vxm ¼ 0, so (4.39a) in vector notation reduces to:
Du
r ¼ Vp þ rg þ mV2 u ðincompressibleÞ: (4.39b)
Dt
Interestingly, the net viscous force per unit volume in incompressible flow, the last term on
the right in this equation, can be obtained from the divergence of the strain rate tensor or
from the curl of the vorticity (see Exercise 4.38):
!
 2  v 2 uj vSij v vuj vui vu
mV u j ¼ m 2 ¼ 2m ¼ m þ ¼ m3jik k ¼ mðV  uÞj : (4.40)
vxi vxi vxi vxi vxj vxi

This result would seem to pose a paradox since it shows that the net viscous force depends on
the vorticity even though rotation of fluid elements was explicitly excluded from entering
(4.37), the precursor of (4.40). This paradox is resolved by realizing that the net viscous force
is given by either a spatial derivative of the vorticity or a spatial derivative of the deformation
rate. The net viscous force vanishes when u is uniform in space (as in solid-body rotation), in
which case the incompressibility condition requires that the deformation rate is zero every-
where as well.
If viscous effects are negligible, which is commonly true away from the boundaries of the
flow field, (4.39) further simplifies to the Euler equation

Du
r ¼ Vp þ rg: (4.41)
Dt