CHAPTER THREE

FLUID MECHNICS
Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the
mechanics of fluids in motion (fluid dynamics) or at rest (fluid
statics) and the forces on them.
 This study area deals with many and diversified problems such as
surface tension, fluid statics, flow in enclose bodies, or flow round
bodies (solid or otherwise), flow stability, etc.
 The applications of fluid mechanics are enormous: breathing,
blood flow, swimming, pumps, fans, turbines, airplanes, ships,
rivers, windmills, pipes, missiles, icebergs, engines, filters, jets,
and sprinklers, to name a few.
 In physics, a fluid is a substance that continually deforms (flows)
under an applied shear stress, or external force. Fluids are a phase
of matter and include liquids and gases.
 3.1. Properties of Bulk Matter
• What the difference b/n elastic and inelastic behaviors?
A sufficiently large force will permanently deform or break an
object, but otherwise, when the external forces are removed, the
object tends to return to its original shape and size. This is called
elastic behavior
 Elastic materials are materials that regain their original shape
and size when the deforming force is removed.
Elastic deformation is a reversible deformation by a force applied
within the elastic limit.
 Beyond elastic limit, a force applied on an object causes permanent
and irreversible deformation called plastic deformation.
 Plastics materials: do not regain their original shape and size when
the deforming force is removed.
 Cont…
• The elastic properties of solid materials are described in
terms of stress and strain.
• Stress is the force per unit area that is causing some
deformation on an object. It has SI unit
called the Pascal (Pa), the same as the unit of pressure.

 Strain-measures the amount of deformation by the applied

stress and defined as the change in configuration of a
body divided by its initial configuration. Strain is unit
less quantity .
 Cont…
• There are three kinds of strains:
1. Tensile Strain:
Cont…

Figure 3.1: Shows a bar‘s a) tensile stress and b)

tensile strain
 Cont…
2. Shear Stress and Strain
when an object is subjected to a force parallel to one of its faces
while the opposite face is held fixed by another force (Figure 3.2a).
The stress in this case is called a shear stress.
 If the object is originally a rectangular block, a shear stress results
in a
shape whose cross section is a parallelogram.
 A book pushed sideways, as shown in Figure 3.2b,
is an example of an object subjected to a shear stress.
 To a first approximation (for small distortions), no change in
volume occurs with this deformation.
We define the shear stress as F/A, the ratio of the tangential force to
the area A of the face being sheared.
 Cont…
The shear strain is defined as the ratio x/h, where x is the
horizontal distance that the sheared face moves and h is the
height of the object.
 In terms of these quantities, the shear modulus is

Figure 3.2: Shows an object deformed by a shear stress, a) shear stress and b)
shear strain
 Cont…
3. Volume Stress and Strain
Volume Stress is a stress which causes volume deformation
on an object and defined as the ratio of the change in the
magnitude of the applied force ∆F to the surface area A
Volume Stress =

 Volume strain is the fractional change in volume (Figure 3)

that is - the change in volume,∆V , divided by the original
volume Vo:

Volume strain=
Cont…

Figure 3.3: A block undergoing volume strain by the applied

volume stress
 Elasticity Moduli

The stress will be proportional to the strain if the stress is

sufficiently small.
 In this regard, the proportionality constant known as
elastic modulus depends on the material being deformed
and on the nature of the deformation.

Corresponding to the three types of strains, there are three

types of elastic module
Cont…
1. Young‘s Modulus: is the ratio of the tensile stress to the
tensile strain.
 It measures the resistance of a solid to a change in its length
and typically used to characterize a rod or wire stressed
under either tension or compression.
because strain is a dimensionless quantity, Y has units of
force per unit area.
Cont…
2. Shear Modulus (S): with units of Pascal, is the ratio of shear
stress to shear strain.
It is the measure of the resistance to motion of the planes
within a solid parallel to each other.
 A material having a large shear modulus is difficult to bend.
Like Young‘s modulus, the unit of shear modulus is the ratio
of that for force to that for area.
 Cont…
3. Bulk Modulus: its SI unit is Pascal, is the ratio of the
volume stress to the volume strain.
• Bulk modulus measures the resistance of solids or liquids to
changes in their volume.
• A material having a large bulk modulus doesn‘t compress
easily.
• Note that a negative sign is included in this defining equation
so that B is always positive.
• An increase in pressure (positive ∆P) causes a decrease in
volume negative ∆V) and vice versa
 Cont…
Note from Table 12.1 that both solids and liquids have a bulk
modulus.
However, no shear modulus and no Young‘s modulus are
given for liquids because a liquid does not sustain a shearing
stress or a tensile stress.
 If a shearing force or a tensile force is applied to a liquid, the
liquid simply flows in response.
Example:
Suppose that the tension in the cable is 940 N as the actor
reaches the lowest point. What diameter should a 10-m-long
steel wire have if we do not want it to stretch more than 0.5 cm
under these conditions?
 3.2. Density and Pressure in Static Fluids

Specific gravity (SG): is the ratio of the density of the

substance to the density of another substance which is
taken as a standard.
The density of pure water at is usually taken as the
standard and this has been defined to be exactly
Specific gravity is a dimensionless quantity and the
same in any system of measurement.
For example, the density of aluminum is
= 2.7
 Cont…
Example:
A solid sphere made of wood has a radius of 0.1 m. The mass of
the sphere is 1.0 kg. Determine a) density and b) specific
gravity of the wood
Solution
 Pressure
Pressure is the ratio of the force acting perpendicular to s
surface to the surface area (A) on which the force acts.
 SI unit of pressure is called Pascal (Pa).
Another commonly used pressure unit is atmosphere (atm)
equal to 101.3 kPa, which is the average pressure, exerted by
the Earth‘s atmosphere at sea level.

 The pressure produced by the column of fluid of height h
and density is given by:
 Cont…
Note that:
 All points at same level in a fluid have same pressure.
 Fluid pressure increases with increase in the depth of the
fluid.
 Fluid pressure does not depend on the shape of the
container.
Atmospheric Pressure: is the pressure due to the weight of
the atmosphere exerted on the surface of the Earth.
 Atmospheric pressure decreases with increase in altitude as
a result of
decrease in the density of the air.
Gauge pressure: is the difference in pressure between a
system and the surrounding atmosphere
 Cont…
Because gauge pressure is the pressure relative to
atmospheric pressure, therefore, it is positive for pressures
above atmospheric pressure, and negative for pressures
below it.

The total pressure, or absolute pressure, is thus the sum of

gauge pressure and atmospheric pressure:
 Cont…
In most cases the absolute pressure in fluids cannot be
negative. Fluids push rather than pull, so the smallest absolute
pressure is zero.
(A negative absolute pressure is a pull.) Thus the smallest
possible gauge pressure is
Example:
A submerged wreck is located 18.3 m beneath the surface of the
ocean off the coast of South Florida. Determine the a) gauge
pressure and b) absolute pressure on a scuba diver who is
exploring the wreck. Note: the density of sea water is
 3.3. Buoyant Force and Archimedes’ Principles

Pascal’s Principle - sates that pressure applied to a confined fluid

in a container is transmitted equally to all regions of the fluid and to
the walls of the container. =
An important application of Pascal‘s principle is the hydraulic press
(Figure 4).

According toPascal‘s principle, these two pressures are equal

implying:
Cont…
Example
3.3.1. Archimedes’ principle
• The famous Greek mathematician, Archimedes‘ developed a
principle which describes this around 250 B.C.
Archimedes‘ principle can be stated as anybody completely
or partially submerged in a fluid is buoyed up by a force
equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body.

the pressure of the fluid is dependent on the depth of the

fluid.
So the pressure at the top of an object is less than the
pressure at the bottom of the object which creates a net
force.
Cont…
Example
 3.4. Moving Fluids and Bernoulli Equations (Fluid Dynamics)

There are many categories of fluids in motion, categorized

by whether the fluid flow is steady, or not steady,
compressible or incompressible, viscous or non-viscous.
In steady flow, the velocity of the fluid particles at any point
is constant as time goes by Different parts of the fluid may
be flowing at different rates, but the fluid in one location is
always flowing at the same rate
An in compressible flow is the flow of a fluid which cannot
be compressed.
A viscous fluid is one which does not flow easily, like
honey, while a non-viscous fluid is one which flows more
easily, like water.
 Cont…
o If the flow is steady, then the velocity of the fluid particles at any
point is a constant with time.
o The various layers of the fluid slide smoothly past each other. This
is called streamline or laminar flow.
 It assumes that as each particle in the fluid passes a certain point it
follows the same path as the particles that preceded it.
 There is no loss of energy due to internal friction in the fluid, which
is the fluid, is assumed to travel smoothly in regular layers; the
velocity and pressure remain constant at every point in the fluid
o Turbulent flow is the irregular movement of particles in a fluid and
results in loss of energy due to internal friction between neighboring
layers of the fluid, called viscosity.
o There is disruption to the layers of fluid; the speed of the fluid at
any point is continuously changing both in magnitude and direction.
 Cont…
• Factors affecting laminar flow are density, compressibility,
temperature and viscosity of the fluid.
Assumptions made in the ideal fluid flow to understand the
complex motions of real fluids:
 The fluid is non-viscous, i.e there is no internal friction
between adjacent layers.
 The flow is steady; the velocity of the fluid at each point
remains constant.
The fluid is incompressible; density of the fluid is constant.
 The flow is irrotational; the fluid has no angular momentum
about any point.
 Equation of Continuity
• Equation of continuity expresses conservation of mass for an
incompressible fluid flowing in a tube.
• It says:” the amount (either mass or volume) of fluid flowing
through a cross section of the tube in a given time interval
must be the same for all cross sections “, or” the product of the
area and the fluid speed at all points along a tube is constant
for an incompressible fluid”

 If the cross sectional area is decreased, and then the flow rate increases.

 when you hold your finger over part of the outlet of a garden hose.
 Because you decrease the cross sectional area, the water velocity
increases.
 Cont…
• The product Av, which has the dimensions of volume per
unit time, is called the flow rate.
• The condition Av = constant is equivalent to the statement
that the volume of fluid that enters one end of a tube in a
given time interval equals the volume leaving the other end
of the tube in the same time interval if no leaks are present.
 3.4.1. Bernoulli’s Equation
• In the 18th century, the Swiss physicists Daniel Bernoulli
derived a relationship between the velocity of a fluid and the
pressure it exerts.
• Qualitatively, Bernoulli‘s principle states that swiftly moving
fluids exert less pressure than slowly moving fluids.
• Bernoulli‘s principle is extremely important in our everyday
life.
 It is the primary principle which leads to lift on an airplane
wing and allows the plane to fly.
 It is the primary reason a sailboat can sail into the wind.
It is the primary reason a baseball can curve.
It is an important reason that smoke is drawn up a chimney.
 Cont…
Bernoulli‘s equation is really a consequence of a
fundamental principle of physics: the conservation of energy.
 It can be derived using energy principles.
Cont…
Cont…

Example
Cont…
Thank
Thank You!
You!