White Fluid Mechanics Chapter 5

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Fluid Mechanics written by Frank M. White.

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Chapter 5 Dimensional Analysis and Similarity

• motivation
  most practical fluid flow problems: too complex, both geometrically and physically, to be solved analytically
  $\Rightarrow$ tested by experiment or approximated by CFD
  $\Rightarrow$ data are expressed in compact economic form: dimensional analysis

5.1 Introdunction

• reducing the number and complexity of experimental variables
  n dimensional variables, k dimensionless variables, n - k : the number of different dimensions
• side benifits
  • enormous saving in time and money
  • helps our thinking and planning for an experiment or theory
  • provide scaling laws that can convert data from a cheap, small model to design information for an expensive, large prototype
    $\Rightarrow$ a condition of similarity exists between the model and the prototype
• levels of the game
  subtlties and nuances that only time, practice and maturity enable you to master

5.2 The Principle of Dimensional Homogeneity

If an equation truly expresses a proper relationship between variables in a physical process, it will be dimensionally homogeneous; that is, each of its additive terms will have the same dimensions.

• variables and constants
• ambiguity: the choice of variables and scaling parameters
  • the falling-body problem: three options
    1. Scaling parameters $S_0$ and $V_0$: the effect of gravity $g$
    2. Scaling parameters $V_0$ and $g$: the effect of gravity $S_0$
    3. Scaling parameters $S_0$ and $g$: the effect of gravity $V_0$
• selection of scaling repeating variables
  1. must not form a dimensionless group amoung themselves, but adding one more variable will form a dimensionless quantity
  2. do not select output variables for your scaling parameters
  3. select popular, not obscure, scaling variables: appear in all of your dimensionless groups
• some peculiar engineering equations
  • the foundation of the dimensional analysis methods rests on two assumptions
    1. the proposed physical relation: dimensionally homogeneous
    2. all the relevant variables have been included in the proposed relation

5.3 The Pi Theorem