Chapter (1)

Dynamic of Fluid Flow

1) Steady or unsteady
A flow is termed steady if its properties do not vary with time.
A flow is termed unsteady if properties at a given point vary with time.
Quasi-steady flow is essentially unsteady but its properties change sufficiently slowly with respect
to time, at a given point, that a series of steady state solutions will approximately represent the
flow.

2) Uniform or Non-uniform
A uniform flow is one in which properties do not vary from point to point over a given
crosssection.
Non-uniform flow has its properties changing with respect to space in a given cross-section.

3) Compressible or Incompressible
If the changes in density are relatively small, the fluid is said to be incompressible. If the changes
in density are appreciable, in case of the fluid being subjected to relatively high pressures, the
fluid has to be treated as Compressible.

4) Viscid or Inviscid
This some time distinguished as Viscid and inviscid flow in relation to the viscous forces whether
they are neglected or taken into account.

1
5) Ideal or Real
An ideal fluid is both inviscid and incompressible. This definition is useful in forming analytical
solution to fluid flow problems.
Fluids in reality are viscous and compressible. Thus, the effect of compressibility and viscosity
must be considered for accurate analysis. It must be stressed that in most common engineering
applications at standard pressure and temperature, water can be assumed incompressible and
inviscid. The assumption of ideal fluid can help to formulate a solution, an approximate solution,
still better than no solution.

6) Isothermal or Adiabatic
When fluid flows without change of its temperature called isothermal flow. While the flow is
such that no heat enters or leaves the flow is adiabatic flow.

7) Rotational or irrotational
The fluid particles rotate about any axis the flow is called rotational flow or vortex flow.
While the fluid particles have no rotations the flow is called irrotational flow or free vortex flow.

8) Laminar and turbulent flow

 Laminar flow
Which is characterized by the fluid flowing in smooth layers of laminae. In this type of flow a
particle of fluid in a given layer stays in that layer as it shown in figure. This type of fluid motion
is called streamline flow.

Straight- line path of fluid particles in laminar flow

2
 Turbulent flow
If the velocity of flow reaches a high enough value, the flow ceases to be laminar and becomes
turbulent. As shown in figure, in turbulent flow the movement of a particle becomes random and
fluctuates up and down in a direction perpendicular as well as parallel to the mean flow direction.
This mixing action generates turbulence due to the colliding fluid particles. This causes
considerably more resistance to flow and thus greater energy losses than that produced by laminar
flow.

Turbulent flow

Flow patterns from water faucet (a) laminar flow (b) turbulent flow
 Stream lines
A streamline is a curve that is everywhere tangent to the instantaneous local velocity vector.
Streamlines are useful as indicators of the instantaneous direction of fluid motion throughout the
flow field. For example, regions of recirculating flow and separation of a fluid off of a solid wall
are easily identified by the streamline pattern. Streamlines cannot be directly observed
experimentally except in steady flow fields.

3
 Stream tube
A stream tube consists of a bundle of streamlines, much like a communications cable consists of
a bundle of fiber-optic cables. Since, there is no fluid movement across the stream lines therefore
no fluid can enter or leave the stream tube excepted its ends. It behaves as a solid tube.

 One-dimensional or Multi-dimensional flow

Term one, two or three dimensional flow refers to the number of space coordinated required to
describe a flow. It appears that any physical flow is generally three-dimensional. But these are
difficult to calculate and call for as much simplification as possible. This is achieved by ignoring
changes to flow in any of the directions, thus reducing the complexity. It may be possible to
reduce a three-dimensional problem to a two-dimensional one, even an one-dimensional one at
times.
One-dimensional flow, is one in which the direction and magnitude of the velocity at all points
are identical.
Variation of velocity in other directions is so small that they can be neglected. eg. Flow of water
in small bore pipe at low flow rates.

4
Two-dimensional flow is one in which the velocity has two main components.
Three-dimensional flow is one in which the flow velocity has significant components in all three
directions.