BEHAVIOUR OF REAL FLUIDS

BEHAVIOUR OF REAL FLUIDS

• Flow of a real fluid is more complex than that of an ideal fluid

• This is as a result of the presence of viscosity
• Viscosity introduces resistance to motion by causing shear and
friction forces between fluid particles and boundary walls.
• For flow to take place, work must be done against resistance forces
• The inclusion of viscosity also allows the possibility of two physically
different flow regimes, laminar and turbulent flows.
DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENT FLOW REGIMES

• The phenomenon was first investigated by Osborne Reynolds.

DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENT FLOW REGIMES

• OBSERVATIONS
 At lower velocities, the filament of the dye would pass through the
glass tube without mixing with water
 At slightly increased velocities, the stream of the dye would begin to
waver
 At higher velocities, the dye would mix completely with water
DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENT FLOW REGIMES

• INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
 At lower velocities, the flow was laminar
 At slightly increased velocities, the flow was in transition
 At higher velocities, the flow was turbulent
DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENT FLOW REGIMES

• CRITERION OF FLOW
 Reynolds was able to generalise his conclusions from his dye stream
experiment by the introduction of an expression governing the
conditions under which laminar and turbulent flows are expected to
exist.
This expression is known as the Reynolds number and is denoted by
Re. Thus
ud ud
Re  
 
DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIFFERENT FLOW REGIMES

• CRITERION OF FLOW
 Re helps to predict the change in flow type
‒ Re < 2000, flow is laminar
‒ Re > 4000, flow is turbulent
‒ 2000 < Re < 4000, transitional
Example

• Water of kinematic viscosity 1.15 x 10-6 m2/s flows in a cylindrical pipe

of 30 mm diameter. Calculate the largest discharge for which laminar
flow can be expected.
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• The flow of real fluid in pipes is often accompanied by some loss of

energy.
• This energy which is lost has to be taken into account.
• In the case of flow in a horizontal uniform pipeline, the effect of
friction is evidenced by the fall of pressure (or head).
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN LAMINAR FLOW

• Consider a cylinder of fluid, length L, radius r, flowing steadily in the
centre of a pipe.
• The pressure at the upstream end is P and at the downstream is P-∆P.
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN LAMINAR FLOW

 At equilibrium, the shear forces on the cylinder equal the pressure
forces.
Pressure forces = Pressure force at 1 – Pressure force at 2
= PA –(P - ∆P)A = ∆PA = ∆Pπr2
Shear force = shear stress x area of the wall
= τ x 2πrL
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN LAMINAR FLOW

 Equating the two expressions, results in the following expression
P r
 
L 2
 By Newton’s law of viscosity, the shear stress is related to the
velocity by the following equation:
 du 
    
 dr 
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN LAMINAR FLOW

 Substituting into the equation Integrating
P r du P 1
R
P r 2
  
L 2 dr
u  
L 2 0
rdr   
L 4
C

du P r
   At r = 0 (the centre of the pipe), u =
dr L 2
umax, at r = R (the pipe wall) u = 0.
P r
or du    dr P R 2
L 2 C 
L 4
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN LAMINAR FLOW

 The expression for velocity at a point r from the pipe centre when
the flow is laminar is given by:
P 1
ur  
L 4

R2  r 2 

The maximum velocity occurs at the centreline where r = 0, or

P R 2
u max  
L 4
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW
• HEAD LOSSES IN LAMINAR FLOW
 Average velocity is given by:
u max P R 2 P D 2
u    
2 L 8 L 32

Discharge is given by:

PD 4
Q
128L

Headloss is given by:

32 Lu
hf 
gD 2
Example
• A fluid of viscosity 0.8 Ns/m2 and specific gravity 1.2 is flowing
through a circular pipe of diameter 100 mm. The maximum shear
stress at the pipe wall is 210 N/m2. Find
i. The pressure gradient
ii. The average velocity
iii. Reynolds number of flow
Example
• An oil of dynamic viscosity 0.15 Pa.s and relative density 0.9 flows
through a 3 cm vertical pipe. Two pressure gauges are fixed 20 m
apart. The gauge A fixed at the top records 200 kPa and the gauge B
fixed at the bottom records 500 kPa. Find the direction of flow and
the rate of flow.
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN TURBULENT FLOW

 The loss of head due to friction in pipe flow is expressed by Darcy-
Weisbach formula as follows:
L u2
hf   
D 2g

 Where  is a dimensionless coefficient called the friction factor.

 Friction factor is dependent on the relative roughness of the pipe
surface, and also on the Reynolds number of the flow.
ANALYSIS OF PIPE FLOW

• HEAD LOSSES IN TURBULENT FLOW

 The friction factor  can also be expressed in terms of coefficient of
friction, f, i.e.
 4f
 Friction factor for laminar flow is given by:
64

Re
 This is obtained by equating the Hagen-Poiseuille equation to the Darcy-
Weisbach equation.
EXPRESSIONS FOR THE DARCY FRICTION FACTOR, 

• Two types of pipe friction for turbulent flow can be distinguished:

a) Smooth pipe friction
b) Rough pipe friction
EXPRESSIONS FOR THE DARCY FRICTION FACTOR, 
 SMOOTH PIPE FRICTION
 Blasius found that for smooth pipes, viscosity effects predominates
so that the friction factor is dependent solely on the Reynolds
number
 Examples of smooth pipes: aluminium, brass, copper, lead,
alkathene, glass, and asbestos cement pipes

For smooth pipes, Blasius gave, for Reynolds numbers between 3000
and 100 000: 0.316

Re 0.25
EXPRESSIONS FOR THE DARCY FRICTION FACTOR, 

 ROUGH PIPE FRICTION

 Blasius found that for these pipes, both the viscosity and roughness
effects influence the flow and the friction factor was dependent on
the Reynolds number and a parameter of relative roughness.

 Nikuradse used sand grains to roughen pipe surfaces.

 He defined a relative roughness k s D , where ks is the sand-grain size
and D the diameter of the pipe.
EXPRESSIONS FOR THE DARCY FRICTION FACTOR, 

 ROUGH PIPE FRICTION

 In the smooth or rough wall limits, Prandtl and Von Karman gave,
respectively:
1 Re 
 Smooth-wall turbulence :  2 log
 2.51

1 3.7 D
 Rough-wall turbulence:  2 log
 ks
EXPRESSIONS FOR THE DARCY FRICTION FACTOR, 

 ROUGH PIPE FRICTION

 Colebrook and White combined smooth-wall and rough-wall
turbulence laws into a single formula, the Colebrook-White equation.
1  ks 2.51 
 2 log   
  3.7 D Re  
This is the principal formula for the friction factor.
 The main difficulty is that it is implicit and an iterative solution is
usually required.
EQUIVALENT SAND ROUGHNESS

• For commercial pipes the pattern of surface roughness may be very

different to that in the artificially roughened surfaces of Nikuradse.
Typical values of ks are given in the table below.
MATERIAL Ks (mm)
Riveted steel 0.9 – 9.0
Concrete 0.3 – 3.0
Wood stave 0.18 – 0.9
Cast iron 0.26
Galvanised iron 0.15
Asphalted cast iron 0.12
Commercial steel or wrought iron 0.046
Glass 0 (smooth)
MOODY CHART

• Graphical solutions of the Colebrook-White formula are available.

• The most well known is the Moody Chart (Plot of  versus Re for
various values of k s D ).