0% found this document useful (0 votes)
59 views20 pages

Material Derivative - Wikipedia

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1/ 20

Material derivative

In continuum mechanics, the material


derivative[1][2] describes the time rate of
change of some physical quantity (like
heat or momentum) of a material element
that is subjected to a space-and-time-
dependent macroscopic velocity field. The
material derivative can serve as a link
between Eulerian and Lagrangian
descriptions of continuum deformation.[3]
For example, in fluid dynamics, the velocity
field is the flow velocity, and the quantity
of interest might be the temperature of the
fluid. In which case, the material derivative
then describes the temperature change of
a certain fluid parcel with time, as it flows
along its pathline (trajectory).

Other names
There are many other names for the
material derivative, including:

advective derivative[4]

convective derivative[5]

derivative following the motion[1]

hydrodynamic derivative[1]
Lagrangian derivative[6]

particle derivative[7]

substantial derivative[1]

substantive derivative[8]

Stokes derivative[8]

total derivative,[1][9] although the


material derivative is actually a special
case of the total derivative[9]

Definition
The material derivative is defined for any
tensor field y that is macroscopic, with the
sense that it depends only on position and
time coordinates, y = y(x, t):
where ∇y is the covariant derivative of the
tensor, and u(x, t) is the flow velocity.
Generally the convective derivative of the
field u·∇y, the one that contains the
covariant derivative of the field, can be
interpreted both as involving the
streamline tensor derivative of the field
u·(∇y), or as involving the streamline
directional derivative of the field (u·∇) y,
leading to the same result.[10] Only this
spatial term containing the flow velocity
describes the transport of the field in the
flow, while the other describes the intrinsic
variation of the field, independent of the
presence of any flow. Confusingly,
sometimes the name "convective
derivative" is used for the whole material
derivative D/Dt, instead for only the spatial
term u·∇. [2] The effect of the time-
independent terms in the definitions are
for the scalar and tensor case respectively
known as advection and convection.

Scalar and vector fields

For example, for a macroscopic scalar


field φ(x, t) and a macroscopic vector field
A(x, t) the definition becomes:
In the scalar case ∇φ is simply the
gradient of a scalar, while ∇A is the
covariant derivative of the macroscopic
vector (which can also be thought of as
the Jacobian matrix of A as a function of
x). In particular for a scalar field in a three-
dimensional Cartesian coordinate system
(x1, x2, x3), the components of the velocity
u are u1, u2, u3, and the convective term is
then:
Development
Consider a scalar quantity φ = φ(x, t),
where t is time and x is position. Here φ
may be some physical variable such as
temperature or chemical concentration.
The physical quantity, whose scalar
quantity is φ, exists in a continuum, and
whose macroscopic velocity is
represented by the vector field u(x, t).

The (total) derivative with respect to time


of φ is expanded using the multivariate
chain rule:
It is apparent that this derivative is
dependent on the vector

which describes a chosen path x(t) in


space. For example, if is chosen,
the time derivative becomes equal to the
partial time derivative, which agrees with
the definition of a partial derivative: a
derivative taken with respect to some
variable (time in this case) holding other
variables constant (space in this case).
This makes sense because if , then
the derivative is taken at some constant
position. This static position derivative is
called the Eulerian derivative.

An example of this case is a swimmer


standing still and sensing temperature
change in a lake early in the morning: the
water gradually becomes warmer due to
heating from the sun. In which case the
term is sufficient to describe the
rate of change of temperature.

If the sun is not warming the water (i.e.


), but the path x(t) is not a
standstill, the time derivative of φ may
change due to the path. For example,
imagine the swimmer is in a motionless
pool of water, indoors and unaffected by
the sun. One end happens to be at a
constant high temperature and the other
end at a constant low temperature. By
swimming from one end to the other the
swimmer senses a change of temperature
with respect to time, even though the
temperature at any given (static) point is a
constant. This is because the derivative is
taken at the swimmer's changing location
and the second term on the right
is sufficient to describe the rate of change
of temperature. A temperature sensor
attached to the swimmer would show
temperature varying with time, simply due
to the temperature variation from one end
of the pool to the other.

The material derivative finally is obtained


when the path x(t) is chosen to have a
velocity equal to the fluid velocity

That is, the path follows the fluid current


described by the fluid's velocity field u. So,
the material derivative of the scalar φ is

An example of this case is a lightweight,


neutrally buoyant particle swept along a
flowing river and experiencing temperature
changes as it does so. The temperature of
the water locally may be increasing due to
one portion of the river being sunny and
the other in a shadow, or the water as a
whole may be heating as the day
progresses. The changes due to the
particle's motion (itself caused by fluid
motion) is called advection (or convection
if a vector is being transported).

The definition above relied on the physical


nature of a fluid current; however, no laws
of physics were invoked (for example, it
was assumed that a lightweight particle in
a river will follow the velocity of the water),
but it turns out that many physical
concepts can be described concisely
using the material derivative. The general
case of advection, however, relies on
conservation of mass of the fluid stream;
the situation becomes slightly different if
advection happens in a non-conservative
medium.

Only a path was considered for the scalar


above. For a vector, the gradient becomes
a tensor derivative; for tensor fields we
may want to take into account not only
translation of the coordinate system due
to the fluid movement but also its rotation
and stretching. This is achieved by the
upper convected time derivative.
Orthogonal coordinates
It may be shown that, in orthogonal
coordinates, the j-th component of the
convection term of the material derivative
is given by[11]

where the hi are related to the metric


tensors by

In the special case of a three-dimensional


Cartesian coordinate system (x, y, z), and
A being a 1-tensor (a vector with three
components), this is just:

Where is a Jacobian

matrix.

See also
Navier–Stokes equations
Euler equations (fluid dynamics)
Derivative (generalizations)
Lie derivative
Levi-Civita connection
Spatial acceleration
Spatial gradient

References
1. Bird, R.B.; Stewart, W.E.; Lightfoot, E.N.
(2007). Transport Phenomena (Revised
Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons. p. 83.
ISBN 978-0-470-11539-8.

2. Batchelor, G. K. (1967). An Introduction to


Fluid Dynamics. Cambridge University
Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 0-521-66396-2.
3. Trenberth, K. E. (1993). Climate System
Modeling. Cambridge University Press.
p. 99. ISBN 0-521-43231-6.

4. Majda, A. (2003). Introduction to PDEs and


Waves for the Atmosphere and Ocean.
Courant Lecture Notes in Mathematics.
Vol. 9. American Mathematical Society.
p. 1. ISBN 0-8218-2954-8.

5. Ockendon, H.; Ockendon, J.R. (2004).


Waves and Compressible Flow. Springer.
p. 6. ISBN 0-387-40399-X.

6. Mellor, G.L. (1996). Introduction to Physical


Oceanography. Springer. p. 19. ISBN 1-
56396-210-1.

7. Stoker, J.J. (1992). Water Waves: The


Mathematical Theory with Applications.
Wiley. p. 5. ISBN 0-471-57034-6.
8. Granger, R.A. (1995). Fluid Mechanics.
Courier Dover Publications. p. 30. ISBN 0-
486-68356-7.

9. Landau, L.D.; Lifshitz, E.M. (1987). Fluid


Mechanics. Course of Theoretical Physics.
Vol. 6 (2nd ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann.
pp. 3–4 & 227. ISBN 0-7506-2767-0.

10. Emanuel, G. (2001). Analytical fluid


dynamics (second ed.). CRC Press. pp. 6–
7. ISBN 0-8493-9114-8.

11. Eric W. Weisstein. "Convective Operator" (ht


tp://mathworld.wolfram.com/ConvectiveOp
erator.html) . MathWorld. Retrieved
2008-07-22.
Further reading
Cohen, Ira M.; Kundu, Pijush K (2008).
Fluid Mechanics (4th ed.). Academic
Press. ISBN 978-0-12-373735-9.
Lai, Michael; Krempl, Erhard; Ruben,
David (2010). Introduction to Continuum
Mechanics (4th ed.). Elsevier. ISBN 978-
0-7506-8560-3.

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Material_derivative&oldid=1150476020"

This page was last edited on 18 April 2023, at


12:01 (UTC). •
Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless
otherwise noted.

You might also like