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Fluid Mechanics (ME 201)

Lecture 10

1.1 Acceleration of a Fluid Particle

We had earlier noted that in the Eulerian description, the rate of change of a conserved
quantity is given by:
Dβ ∂β
= + u · ∇β
Dt ∂t
where β is a conserved quantity, a scalar, a vector or a tensor. Thus, for the acceleration
of a fluid particle:
Du ∂u
a= = + u · ∇u
Dt ∂t
The last term on the right hand side would have been written differently, had we continued
to write in the column vector instead of our row-wise style of writing vectors. Then the
term would have to be written as: ∇u · u.
In expanded cartesian coordinate system2 , we can write the accelerations in x, y and
z directions as:
∂u ∂u ∂u ∂u
ax = +u +v +w
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z
∂v ∂v ∂v ∂v
ay = +u +v +w
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z
∂w ∂w ∂w ∂w
az = +u +v +w
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z

2 Incompressibility and Irrotationality

2.1 Incompressibility Condition
The mass conservation equation in the Eulerian framework is given by:

∂ρ
+ ∇ · (ρu) = 0
∂t
Expanding the second term on the left hand side of the equation, we can write:

∂ρ
+ (u · ∇) + ρ∇ · u = 0
∂t
The above equation can be written as:

1 Dρ
= −∇ · u
ρ Dt
1
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© Gaurav Tomar(2022)
Of course for cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems there would be additional terms. Why?

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For a given fluid particle, mass m is conserved and we can write, ρ = m/ν, where, ν is
the volume particle. Substituting into the mass conservation equation:
ν D(m/ν)
= −∇ · u
m Dt
Thus, we get:
1 Dν
=∇·u
ν Dt
Therefore, divergence of the velocity field (of course, Eulerian framework) is essentially
the rate of change of volume per unit volume of the given fluid particle at the location
where ∇ · u is being evaluated. In other words, divergence of the velocity is the rate of
expansion or the rate of dilatation. If ∇ · u is negative it refers to the contraction of the
fluid particle.
For an incompressible fluid, the volume and thus the density of a given particle remains
constant, i.e. ∇ · u = 0. If ∇ · u = 0 is true everywhere and at all times, then the fluid
is refered to as incompressible fluid.

2.2 Streamfunction
As noted above that for incompressible flows the velocity field needs to be solenoidal i.e.
∇ · u = 0. In fact for steady compressible flows also a similar expression can be written
as:
∇ · (ρu) = 0.
Now, we know that the divergence of a curl is zero, so we can write:
u=∇×B
where B is some vector called the ’vector potential’ of u. Similarly, for steady-compressible
flows: ρu = ∇ × B.
For a two dimensional incompressible flow:
B = (0, 0, ψ)
Thus,
∂ψ ∂ψ
u = uî + v ĵ = î − ĵ
∂y ∂x
The above velocity field satisfies the divergence free condition.
A small increment in the value of ψ can be written as:
∂ψ ∂ψ
dψ = dy + dx
∂y ∂x
Integrating the above expression, we can write:
Z Z
∂ψ ∂ψ
dψ = dy + dx
∂y ∂x
Z
=⇒ ψ − ψ0 = (udy − vdx)

The schematic below depicts the above integral. If the flow is in the counter-clockwise
direction (i.e. u > 0 and v < 0 in the schematic shown) then the quantity (ψ − ψ0 ) will
be positive.

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 y ψ
P

ψ0 udy
−vdx
O
x

Figure 1: Schematic showing a contour joining locations O and P where the streamfunc-
tions holds a value of ψ0 and ψ, respectively.

Also, we can see that (ψ − ψ0 ) essentially repre- y

ψ P
sents the volume flux across the contour joining the
points O and P . Thus, any contour can R be drawn ψ0

between these points but the integral (udy − vdx) O

would result in the same flux. And if the integral x

is zero, i.e. no net flux across the contour, it would

imply that ψ = ψ0 . Now, any two points on a
streamline, that as we already know are tangent to
the velocity field everywhere, would have zero net
flow across them. Thus, the value of ψ along a
streamline would be constant. Thus, streamlines essentially represent iso-contours of the
ψ field and therefore, the function ψ is called the streamfunction.
The points P and O lie on streamlines that have values of ψ and ψ0 , respectively.

In polar coordinates:
Continuity equation is given by,
∂ur 1 ∂uθ
+ = 0.
∂r r ∂θ
Writing u = ∇ × B, where B = ψ k̂, we get:
1 ∂ψ ∂ψ
u= r̂ − θ̂.
r ∂θ ∂r
Thus,
1 ∂ψ ∂ψ
ur = and uθ = −
r ∂θ ∂r

In Axisymmetric Coordinates:
In axisymmetric coordinates the continuity equation is given by:
1 ∂(ur r) ∂uz
+ = 0.
r ∂r ∂z
which can also be written as:
∂(ur r) ∂(ruz )
+ = 0.
∂r ∂z

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Now, similar to the two-dimensional case, we can write:
∂ψ ∂ψ
rur = and ruz = −
∂r ∂z
Thus,
1 ∂ψ 1 ∂ψ
ur = and uz = −
r ∂r r ∂z
Note that the dimensions of the stream function for the axi-symmetric case are different
from that for the 2D-cartesian or polar case discussed earlier. This particular stream
function for axisymmetric case is called the Stokes streamfunction.

Spherical Coordinates:
In spherical coordinates, the velocity components can be written in terms of the stream-
function as:
1 ∂ψ 1 ∂ψ
ur = 2 and uθ = −
r sin θ ∂θ r sin θ ∂r