BASIC INTRODUCTORY

CONCEPTS
 INTRODUCTION
• Mechanics: The oldest physical science that deals with both
stationary and moving bodies under the influence of forces.
• Statics: The branch of mechanics that deals with bodies at
rest.
• Dynamics: The branch that deals with bodies in motion.
• Fluid mechanics: The science that deals with the behavior
of fluids at rest (fluid statics) or in motion (fluid dynamics),
and the interaction of fluids with solids or other fluids at
the boundaries.
• Fluid dynamics: Fluid mechanics is also referred to as fluid
dynamics by considering fluids at rest as a special case of
motion with zero velocity.
 INTRODUCTION
• Hydrodynamics: The study of the motion of fluids that can be
approximated as incompressible (such as liquids, especially
water, and gases at low speeds).
• Hydraulics: A subcategory of hydrodynamics, which deals with
liquid flows in pipes and open channels.
• Gas dynamics: Deals with the flow of fluids that undergo
significant density changes, such as the flow of gases through
nozzles at high speeds.
• Aerodynamics: Deals with the flow of gases (especially air)
over bodies such as aircraft, rockets, and automobiles at high
or low speeds.
• Meteorology, oceanography, and hydrology: Deal with
naturally occurring flows.
 What is a Fluid?
• Fluid: A substance in the liquid or gas phase.
A solid can resist an applied shear stress by deforming.
• A fluid deforms continuously under the influence of a
shear stress, no matter how small.
• In solids, stress is proportional to strain, but in fluids,
stress is proportional to strain rate.
• When a constant shear force is applied, a solid
eventually stops deforming at some fixed strain angle,
whereas a fluid never stops deforming and approaches
a constant rate of strain.
 What is a Fluid?
• Deformation of a
rubber block placed
between two parallel
plates under the
influence of a shear
force. The shear
stress shown is that
on the rubber—an
equal but opposite
shear stress acts on
the upper plate.
 What is a Fluid?
• In a liquid, groups of molecules can
move relative to each other, but the
volume remains relatively constant
because of the strong cohesive forces
between the molecules. As a result, a
liquid takes the shape of the container
it is in, and it forms a free surface in a
larger container in a gravitational field.
• A gas expands until it encounters the
walls of the container and fills the
entire available space. This is because
the gas molecules are widely spaced,
and the cohesive forces between them
are very small. Unlike liquids, a gas in
an open container cannot form a free
surface.
Application Areas of Fluid Mechanics
 Importance of Dimensions and Units
• Any physical quantity can be characterized by dimensions.
• The magnitudes assigned to the dimensions are called units.
• Some basic dimensions such as mass m, length L, time t, and
temperature T are selected as primary or fundamental
dimensions, while others such as velocity V, energy E, and
volume V are expressed in terms of the primary dimensions
and are called secondary dimensions, or derived dimensions.
• Metric SI system: A simple and logical system based on a
decimal relationship between the various units.
• English system: It has no apparent systematic numerical base,
and various units in this system are related to each other
rather arbitrarily.
 Importance of Dimensions and Units
• Dimensional homogeneity
All equations must be dimensionally homogeneous

• Unity Conversion Ratios

All nonprimary units (secondary units) can be formed
by combinations of primary units.

• Force units, for example, can be expressed as

m
N  kg 2
s
 Importance of Dimensions and Units
• They can also be expressed more conveniently
as unity conversion ratios as
N
1
m
kg 2
s
• Unity conversion ratios are identically equal to
1 and are unitless, and thus such ratios (or their
inverses) can be inserted conveniently into any
calculation to properly convert units.
Always check the
units in your
calculations
 The Definition of Pressure
• Pressure is defined as the amount of force exerted
on a unit area of a substance or on a surface. This
can be stated by the equation

F N
P  P  2
A m
 The Definition of Pressure
• Two important principles about pressure were
described by Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth-
century scientist:
– Pressure acts uniformly in all directions on a small
volume of a fluid.
– In a fluid confined by solid boundaries, pressure
acts perpendicular to the boundary.
• Using the previous equation and the second of
Pascal's laws, we can compute the magnitude of the
pressure in a fluid if we know the amount of force
exerted on a given area.
 The Definition of Pressure
• Direction of fluid pressure on boundaries.
 Compressibility
• Compressibility refers to the change in volume
(V) of a substance that is subjected to a
change in pressure on it.
• The usual quantity used to measure this
phenomenon is the bulk modulus of elasticity
or, simply, bulk modulus, E:
p 2
E   E  N/m
V V
 Compressibility
• The magnitudes of E for liquids are very high .
For this reason, Liquids will be considered
incompressible in this subject, unless stated
otherwise.
• The term bulk modulus is not usually applied to
gases, and the principles of thermodynamics
must be applied to determine the change in
volume of a gas with a change in pressure.
 Density
• Density is the amount of mass per unit volume
of a substance. Therefore, using the Greek
letter ρ (rho) for density, we write

ρ = m/ V

– where V is the volume of the substance having a

mass m. The units for density are kilograms per
cubic meter (kg/m3) in the SI system
 Specific Weight
• Specific weight is the amount of weight per
unit volume of a substance. Using the Greek
letter ϒ(gamma) for specific weight, we write

ϒ = w/ V
– where V is the volume of a substance having the
weight w. The units for specific weight are Newton
per cubic meter (N/m3) in the SI system
 Specific Gravity
• It is often convenient to indicate the specific
weight or density of a fluid in terms of its
relationship to the specific weight or density
of a common fluid.
• When the term specific gravity is used in this
subject, the reference fluid is pure water at
4°C. At that temperature water has its greatest
density.
 Specific Gravity
• Then, specific gravity can be defined in either of two
ways:
a. Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance
to the density of water at 4 °C.
b. Specific gravity is the ratio of the specific weight of a
substance to the specific weight of water at 4°C.
• These definitions for specific gravity (sg) can be
shown mathematically as
s s
sg  
 
w @ 4 C w @ 4 C
 Relation Between Density and
Specific Weight
• The conversion from one to the other can be
made using the following equation:
ϒ = ρg
 Weight and Mass
• We relate these two terms by applying
Newton's law of gravitation stated as force
equals mass times acceleration, or
2
F  m  a  F  kg  m s  N
• Weight-Mass Relationship
2
w  m  g  kg  m s  N
 Temperature
• Temperature is most often indicated in °C
(degrees Celsius) or °F (degrees Fahrenheit).
• The Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales
were defined according to arbitrary reference
points
– Water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C.
– Water freezes at 32°F and boils at 212°F.

Given the temperature TF in °F, the temperature TC in °C is

TC = (TF - 32) / 1.8
 Temperature
• Absolute Temperature: The absolute temperature,
on the other hand, is defined so the zero point
corresponds to the condition where all molecular
motion stops. This is called absolute zero.
• In the SI unit system, the standard unit of
temperature is the kelvin, for which the standard
symbol is K and the reference (zero) point is absolute
zero.
TK = TC + 273.15
 Surface Tension
• Surface tension acts somewhat like a film at
the interface between the liquid water surface
and the air above it.
• Quantitatively, surface tension is measured as
the work per unit area required to move lower
molecules to the surface of the liquid.
• The resulting units are force per unit length,
such as N/m
work N m
Surface tension   2 N m
area m