CE 376

HYDROMECHANICS

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 1. INTRODUCTION

Scope

In many water systems, transportation of water from

one location to another is main concern.
Two main modes of transportation are:
1. Closed conduits with pressurized flow inside

2. Open conduits with free surface flow inside

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• The main objective in this course is to study the flow
in closed conduits (mainly pipes) and in open channels

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 INTERNAL FLOW

Fluid flow is classified as external if it is forced to flow over a

surface
OR
internal, if it is forced to flow in a conduit.

In internal flow where the conduit is completely filled with the

fluid, and the flow is driven primarily by a pressure difference.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
7
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
 Liquid or gas flow through pipes or ducts is is usually forced to flow
by a fan or pump through a flow section. FRICTION must be paid a
particular attention here, as it is directly related to the pressure
drop and head loss during flow through pipes and ducts. The
pressure drop is then used to determine the pumping power
requirement.
A typical piping system involves pipes of different diameters
connected to each other by various fittings or elbows to route the
fluid, valves to control the flow rate, and pumps to pressurize the
fluid.
Most fluids, especially liquids, are transported in circular pipes. This
is because pipes with a circular cross section can withstand large
pressure differences between the inside and the outside
without undergoing significant distortion.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
8
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
 Noncircular pipes are usually used in applications such as the
heating and cooling systems of buildings where the pressure
difference is relatively small.

The theory of fluid flow is reasonably well understood. However,

theoretical solutions are obtained only for a few simple cases such
as fully developed laminar flow in a circular pipe.
Experimental results and empirical relations for most fluid flow
problems are much preferred than analytical solutions. However
experimental results are not exact as well.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
9
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
The fluid velocity in a pipe changes from zero at the wall because of the
no-slip condition to a maximum at the pipe center. In fluid flow, it is
convenient to work with an average velocity Vavg, which remains constant in
incompressible flow when the cross-sectional area of the pipe is constant

The average velocity in heating and cooling applications may

change somewhat because of changes in density with temperature. But, in
practice, we evaluate the fluid properties at some average temperature and
treat them as constants. The convenience of working with constant
properties usually more than justifies the slight loss in accuracy.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
10
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
 The value of the average velocity Vavg at some streamwise cross
section is determined from the requirement that the conservation of
mass principle be satisfied. That is,

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
11
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
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 THE ENTRANCE REGION
Consider a fluid entering a circular pipe at a uniform velocity. Because of the no-slip
condition, the fluid particles in the layer in contact with the Wall of the pipe come to a
complete stop. This layer also causes the fluid particles in the adjacent layers to slow
down gradually as a result of friction. To make up for this velocity reduction, the velocity of
the fluid at the midsection of the pipe has to increase to keep the mass flow rate through
the pipe constant. As a result, a velocity gradient develops along the pipe.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
14
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
 The region from the pipe inlet to the point at which the velocity profile is fully developed is
called the hydrodynamic entrance region, and the length of this region is called the
hydrodynamic entry length Lh. Flow in the entrance region is called hydrodynamically
developing flow since this is the region where the velocity profile develops. The region
beyond the entrance region in which the velocity profile is fully developed and remains
unchanged is called the hydrodynamically fully developed region. The flow is said to be
fully developed when the normalized temperature profile remains unchanged as well.
Hydrodynamically fully developed flow is equivalent to fully developed flow when the fluid
temperature remains constant. The velocity profile in the fully developed region is
parabolic in laminar flow and is much flatter (or fuller) in turbulent flow due to eddy motion.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
15
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
Entry Lengths
The hydrodynamic entry length is usually taken to be the distance from
the pipe entrance to where the wall shear stress (and thus the friction
factor) reaches within about 2 percent of the fully developed value.

The pipes used in practice are

hydrodynamic usually several times the
entry length for length of the entrance region,
laminar flow and thus the flow through the
pipes is often assumed to be
hydrodynamic
fully developed for the entire
entry length for
length of the pipe.
turbulent flow
This simplistic approach gives
hydrodynamic entry reasonable results for long
length for turbulent pipes but sometimes poor
flow, an approximation results for short ones since it
underpredicts the wall shear
stress and thus the friction
factor. 16
 LAMINAR AND TURBULENT FLOW

The transition from laminar to turbulent flow does

not occur suddenly; rather, it occurs over some
region in which the flow fluctuates between
laminar and turbulent flows before it becomes
fully turbulent.
Most flows encountered in practice are
turbulent. Laminar flow is encountered when
highly viscous fluids such as oils flow in small
pipes or narrow

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
17
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
 LAMINAR AND TURBULENT FLOW

The existence of these laminar, transitional,

and turbulent flow regimes can be verified by
injecting some dye streaks into the flow in a
glass pipe, as the British engineer Osborne
Reynolds (1842–1912) did over a century
ago. We observe that the dye streak forms a
straight and smooth line at low velocities
when the flow is laminar (we may see some
blurring because of molecular diffusion), has
bursts of fluctuations in the transitional
regime, and zigzags rapidly and disorderly
when the flow becomes fully turbulent.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
18
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
 These zigzags and the dispersion of
the dye are indicative of the
fluctuations in the main flow and the
rapid mixing of fluid particles from
adjacent layers.

The intense mixing of the fluid in

turbulent flow as a result of rapid
fluctuations enhances momentum
transfer between fluid particles, which
increases the friction force on the
pipe wall and thus the required
pumping power. The friction factor
reaches a maximum when the flow
becomes fully turbulent.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
19
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
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 REYNOLDS NUMBER

The Reynolds number can be viewed as the ratio of inertial forces

to viscous forces acting on a fluid element.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
21
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
The transition from laminar to turbulent flow depends on the
geometry, surface roughness, flow velocity, surface
temperature, and type of fluid, among other things.

After exhaustive experiments in the 1880s, Osborne Reynolds

discovered that the flow regime depends mainly on the ratio of
inertial forces to viscous forces in the fluid.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
22
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
Vavg = average flow velocity (m/s),
D = characteristic length of the geometry (diameter in this case, in m)
= / = kinematic viscosity of the fluid (m2/s)

Note that the Reynolds number is a dimensionless quantity.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
23
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
24
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
FULLY DEVELOPED LAMINAR FLOW

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From F=ma

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Exp:

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From Dimensional Analysis

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In practice, it is convenient to express the pressure loss for all types of fully
developed internal flows (laminar or turbulent flows, circular or
noncircular pipes, smooth or rough surfaces, horizontal or inclined pipes)
as:

It is also called the Darcy–Weisbach friction factor, named after the

Frenchman Henry Darcy (1803–1858) and the German Julius Weisbach
(1806–1871), the two engineers who provided the greatest contribution to its
development.
The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
39
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
40
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.
Head Loss (Energy Considerations)

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In the analysis of piping systems, pressure losses are commonly expressed
in terms of the equivalent fluid column height, called the head loss hL.
Noting from fluid statics that ∆P = gh and thus a pressure difference of
∆P corresponds to a fluid height of h = ∆P/ :

The head loss hL represents the additional height that the fluid needs to be
raised by a pump in order to overcome the frictional losses in the pipe. The
head loss is caused by viscosity, and it is directly related to the wall shear
stress. Above equation is valid for both laminar and turbulent flows in
both circular and noncircular pipes.

The above text and figures are taken from: Çengel, Y. A. & Cimbala, J.M., Fluid Mechanics:
42
Fundamentals and Applications, McGraw Hill, 2017.