Chapter 2

Potential Flow
CONTENTS
• Vorticity
• Circulation
• Stream function
• Velocity Potential
• Basic Plane
• Superposition
Potential flow (Ideal Flow)
• An ideal fluid is a purely hypothetical fluid which is assumed to have no
viscosity and no compressibility and in the case of liquids, no surface tension
and no vaporization.
• Basically there are two types of motion :
 Translation
 Rotation

• Lets consider a solid body is represented by a square.

Inviscid flow
• Flow fields in which the shearing stresses are assumed to be negligible, are
said to be inviscid, nonviscous or frictionless.
• Euler’s Equation of Motion

Euler’s equation is simply the Navier-

Stokes equation with the viscous term
neglected
Vorticity (ζ)
• The equation for vorticity is:

where ωz is the angular velocity about z-axis

• If the motion of fluid particles is purely translational and the distortion is
symmetrical, the flow is “irrotational”. So the condition must satisfy:

Irrotational flow
Circulation (Γ)
• Consider a fluid element in rotational motion. Let the velocity components
along the sides of the element be as shown in figure below:

Circulation,
Stream Function (ψ)
• Steady, incompressible, plane, two-dimensional flow represents one of the
simplest types of flow of practical importance.
• By plane, two-dimensional flow means there are only two velocity
components, u and v, when the flow is considered to be in x-y plane.
• It must satisfy continuity equation:

• To relate these two variables, u and v,

Stream Function (ψ)
• In cylindrical polar coordinates, the two velocity components are and . Thus, .
• The continuity equation for steady, incompressible two-dimensional flow
reduced to

• To relate and
Velocity Potential (Φ)
 
Relationship between stream function
and velocity potential
• We know that;

• By equating for u and v, we will obtain:

“Cauchy-Riemann Equation”
Laplace’s equation
 𝑬𝒙𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝟏
(a=0.5,b=-2.0,c=-1.5)

i)Obtain the velocity components u and v

ii)Plot the streamlines of the flow in the upper right quadrant
Basic Plane Flows
o Uniform flow
o Source
o Sink
o Doublet
o Irrotational Vortex
Uniform Flow
Source and Sink
Doublet
Irrotational Vortex
Superposition
• Superpositionis the process of adding
two or more irrotational flow solutions
together to generate a third solution.
Source and Uniform flow
(flow past a half body)
Source and Sink at equal strength
(Doublet)
Doublet and Uniform flow
(flow past a cylinder)
Source, Sink and Uniform flow
(flow past a Rankine body)
Exercise