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Chapter 1 Introduction

This document introduces the topic of incompressible aerodynamics. It will discuss flow around aeronautical devices, assuming the Mach number is much less than 1 so that density can be treated as constant. It also notes that steady and inviscid flows will be considered, where viscosity at boundaries is ignored. This allows analysis to yield useful practical results, as discovered by early pioneers in the field.

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Paplu Paul
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81 views

Chapter 1 Introduction

This document introduces the topic of incompressible aerodynamics. It will discuss flow around aeronautical devices, assuming the Mach number is much less than 1 so that density can be treated as constant. It also notes that steady and inviscid flows will be considered, where viscosity at boundaries is ignored. This allows analysis to yield useful practical results, as discovered by early pioneers in the field.

Uploaded by

Paplu Paul
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

INTRODUCTION

(i) As noted above, we call the course ‘Aerodynamics’ because we will be interested
eventually on the nature of the flow around bodies – mainly those associated with
aeronautically-linked devices. Much of the history of the subject has been dominated
by workers in that context. See Anderson, pp.3-10.

(ii) Strictly, it is ‘Incompressible Aerodynamics’, for we limit our discussion to cases


where:
Flow speed U
" " M << 1 (1.1)
Sound speed a

where M is the Mach number. For M<<1 the density, ρ, can be regarded as constant.
It is not affected by changes in pressure. Why does this latter statement follow from
the former? ! Recall Bernoulli, which implies that a change in fluid speed from zero to
U requires a pressure variation, Δp, of order ρU2.

"# $ "p ' 1


But ~ $"p , where β is the compressibility, and a 2 = & ) ~ , where a is the
# % "# ( s #*
speed of sound and the differential is taken at constant entropy (s).

"# "p U 2 "#


! Thus ~ 2 ~ 2 = M2 , so for << 1, !M2 << 1. Note that since it’s M2, M can be
# a a #
as much as 0.2, say, for density variations to be negligible in many cases.

Note also that the character of low Mach number flow is, from a thermodynamic
! just a perturbation of the basic state! This is readily seen by
! point of view, essentially
comparing the internal energy per unit volume, ρE=cvT=cva2/γR, with the kinetic
energy per unit volume, 0.5ρU2. The ratio of these two quantities is proportional to
M2 (check it!). So U is very much less than the velocities associated with the
Brownian motion of the molecules, although the average of the latter is zero so the
flow emerges as a net effect.

(iii) We only consider steady flows.

(iv) We also only consider inviscid flows – so the ‘no-slip’ condition at solid boundaries
cannot be satisfied. It turns out that this restriction is in many ways not serious and
the analysis which the inviscid assumption makes possible yields not only beautiful
but also practically useful results (as the early pioneers discovered).

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