Fluid dynamics I

Fall 2003

Professor Stephen Childress.

Monday, 1:25-3:15pm in WWH 813.

Office Hours: Monday 10-11 am, and Friday 10-11am, or by appointment.

This course will discuss basic fluid dynamics, both physical and theoretical aspects.

The first semester will concentrate on the incompressible Navier-Stokes fluids:
Eulerian and Lagrangian descriptions of a fluid, kinematics, equations of motionInviscid fluids, viscous stresses. Vorticity kinematics, potential flow, lift and aerofoils.
Viscous flows, Stokes flow, boundary layers. At leat one special topic will be included.
(The second semester will be concerned with compressible fluids:
Thermodynamics of gases, the energy equation, one-dimensional homentropic flow,
shock waves, characteristic methods, transonic and supersonic flow)

Materials and Content

Books

Videos

Tentative syllabus

Lecture 1: Eulerian and Lagrangian descriptions of a fluid.
Lecture 2:Conservation of mass and momentum.
Lecture 3: Dynamics of an inviscid fluid.
Lecture 4: Euler flows and vorticity.
Lecture 5: Vorticity II.
Lecture 6: Potential flow.
Lecture 7: Lift in two dimensions.
Lecture 8: Joukowski airfoils, lifting-line theory of the 3D wing, virtual mass.
Lecture 9: Navier-Stokes equations. The stress tensor. Elementary solutions
Lecture 10:Low Reynolds number flow.
Lecture 11:HighReynolds number flow: boundary layers.
Lecture 12: The boundary layer II.
Lecture 13: Surface waves
Lecture 14: Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Surface phenomena.

Homework 1. Due September 22. TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 2. Due September 29. TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 3. Due October 6. TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 4. Due October 13 TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 5. Due October 20 TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 6. Due October 27 TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 7. November 3 TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 8. Due November 10 TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 9. Due November 17 TeX version. PDF version.
Homework 10. Due November 24 TeX version. PDF version.

Research problems: Theses are problems which require some independent study since

they deal with topics outside the lectures. I'll be adding them throughout the course.

They are not to be handed for a grade, but in but I'll be happy to look at and discuss your work.
Download PDF file.