MEC3451

Stress tensor

Surface traction and the stress tensor

The combined eect of surface forces due to pressure and friction is modelled as a surface traction , which is dened as a vector f T accounting for the total pressure and frictional force per unit area acting at any point on a control surface (CS). Note that f T can have a direction dierent from that of n, the outward unit normal vector.
Surface traction

Figure 1: orientation of f T and n

The total surface force on a small surface patch of area A is f T A. Therefore, the total surface force on the entire controlvolume (CV) is the sum of all surface forces from every patch on the CS i.e.
Total surface force on CS

=
CS

f T dA ,

(1)

Supercially, f T seems to be a vector eld 1 just like the velocity eld v. However, it is possible to obtain f T at some point in a uid only after we identify a control-surface at that point with a unit outward normal. We will later see why this makes f T a dicult quantity to work with when the goal is to obtain the dierential equations governing uid motion.
1

A eld is any function of position and time.

MEC3451

Stress tensor

Noting that f T at any point on a surface is fundamentally related to n at that point, Augustin-Louis Cauchy postulated that there exists a well-dened material property which is a tensor eld that is independent of n such that fT = n ; (2)

Stress tensor

is known as the stress tensor. This quantity is a eld that contains the entire information at any point in the ow about the surface force on any possible surface patch centred at that point. All you need to do is to take n for that surface patch, take its dot-product with upsigma to generate f T for that patch. For the purposes of MEC3451, a second-order tensor T is a physical quantity that when dot-multiplied with any vector a will give another vector b, which need not have the same magnitude or direction as a i.e. b = T a. (3)

Whats a tensor?

Recall that all 3D vectors can be represented as a 31 column matrix with each element of the matrix representing a component of the vector along one of the principal directions of a co-ordinate system. But how do we actually calculate a component of a vector? We take the dot-product of that vector with a unit vectors along a principal direction i.e. if we want the x co-ordinate of a vector a, then the component ax = a i. Hence, the components of a in Cartesian co-ordinates are ax ai ay = a j . (4) az ak Once we have this set of three numbers for a vector a in a coordinate system, that vector is completely and uniquely specied in that co-ordinate system i.e. we dont need any further information to picture that vector in space, and if any other
2

Whats a vector?

MEC3451

Stress tensor

vector has exactly the same set of numbers and in the same order, then that vector must be identical to a. Now for a subtle point: vectors are physical quantities that exist independently of co-ordinate systems. For instance, the position of a particular point in space has a physical meaning that has nothing to do with where you or I place an origin, or how we choose to orient our axes etc. So if each of chooses a dierent co-ordinate system, each of us will have a dierent set of numbers. The nice thing is that here exist well-dened rules for converting one set of components of a in one co-ordinate system to the set in a dierent co-ordinate system, so that two dierent observers will draw exactly the same arrow for a irrespective of what coordinate system they use. Conceptually, this idea is equivalent to using dierent systems of units (SI, English etc.)...we observe the same reality; we just express it dierently. A similar recipe can be followed to nd all the components of a tensor T. From the denition of a tensor, when we dotmultiply tensor T with i in a Cartesian co-ordinate system, then we will get a vector with three components. Let us for the moment denote this vector as T(x) . And this vector itself has three components, (x) Tx (x) Ty . (5) (x) Tz Similarly, if we dot-multiply T with j and with k, we get T(y) and T(z ) , respectively, each with their own x, y and z components. In all, therefore we get 9 vector components, 3 for each principal direction. A second-order tensor is completely and uniquely dened in a given co-ordinate system once its set of 9 components has been determined following the recipe above. And, not surprisingly, the previous comments about rules for transforming
3

Components of a tensor

MEC3451

Stress tensor

between dierent co-ordinate systems also hold for tensors. Say two dierent observers have two dierent sets of components describing a unit outward normal n they have observed. Then, each of their sets of 9 components for the stress tensor MUST be such that when they individually calculate their surface tractions and draw those vectors, they MUST agree completely.2 A good way of representing tensors is to arrange the 9 components as a 33 square matrix i.e. (x) (y ) (z ) Tx Tx Tx (x) (y ) (z ) T T(x) T(y) T(z ) (6) T T T y y y . (x) (y ) (z ) Tz Tz Tz More commonly, the following notational convention is used for orthogonal co-ordinate systems like rectangular, cylindricalpolar or spherical co-ordinate systems: Txx Txy Txz T Tyx Tyy Tyz . (7) Tzx Tzy Tzz With this representation, the dot-product between a tensor and a vector to get a vector is just the familiar matrix-multiplication of a 3 3 square matrix with a 3 1 column matrix to get a 3 1 column matrix. At this point we may note that just like we can multiply a vector by a scalar, we have Txx Txy Txz sTxx sTxy sTxz (8) s T s Tyx Tyy Tyz = sTyx sTyy sTyz , sTzx sTzy sTzz Tzx Tzy Tzz where s is some scalar.
2

Matrix representation of a tensor

Tensors are deep and cool :) See Wikipedia.

MEC3451

Stress tensor

Returning back to the stress tensor , xx xy xz yx yy yz , zx zy zz

(9)

if we dot-multiply with the unit-vector in the x-direction, by Eq. 2, we must get the surface traction f T on a patch whose outward unit normal is i. But then, xx xy xz 1 xx f T on patch perpendicular to i = i = yx yy yz 0 = yx . zx zy zz 0 zx (10) In other words, xx is the x-component of the traction force on the x-normal surface; yx is the y-component of the force on the x-normal surface; zx is the z-component of the force on the x-normal surface. Therefore, any component of the stress tensor, for instance zy has the following meaning: The same logic

Figure 2: Components of stress tensor...

applies to other orthogonal co-ordinate systems, for instance, in cylindrical-polar co-ordinates, the stress tensor components are
5

MEC3451

Stress tensor

denoted as rr r xz r z , zr z zz (11)

which can guratively be understood by the following sketch. The units of all the components of this tensor are the same as

Figure 3: Stress tensor in cylindrical polar co-ords.

the traction force f T i.e. N/m2 . The total surface traction at any point on a surface is further written as the sum of contributions coming from pressure and ow-induced uid friction i.e. fT = fp + ff , (12)

which implies that we can split the total stress tensor also into two corresponding contributions, the pressure tensor and the ow-induced stress tensor uptau, such that = + , where the pressure traction, fp = n , (14)
6

(13)

MEC3451

Stress tensor

and the frictional traction, ff = n . But we know that the pressure traction 1. always acts perpendicular to any surface, and 2. is always compressive, i.e. it acts in the direction opposite to the outward normal n. Therefore, we expect that fp = p n , (16) (15)

where p is the scalar pressure that we are familiar with. Putting together Eqs. 14 and 16 above, we get: n = pn ; (17)

so how is related to p? To see this, we go back to what the general denition of a tensor is in Eq. (3): when a tensor dot-multiplies a vector, it gives another vector not necessarily the same as the rst one. But is there a tensor that will give the same vector back? If we think about tensors as matrices, we can immediately see that a tensor that looks just like the identity matrix with ones along the diagonal and zeros everywhere else will do exactly that. This is known as the identity tensor: 1 0 0 0 1 0 , (18) 0 0 1 Returning now to the relationship between the pressure tensor and the scalar pressure, and writing n on the right hand side of Eq. (20) as n, we see that n = p n , (19)
7

Identity tensor

MEC3451

Stress tensor

or, ( + p) n = 0 , and this is only possible if = p . Thus, the total stress tensor = p + . (22) (21) (20)

One more concept before we nish this discussion of the stress tensor. It turns out that for simple solids and uids, the stress tensor must be symmetric in order to conserve angular moment; for instance, in Cartesian co-ordinates, xy = yx , xz = zx and yz = zy . Otherwise, in the absence of all other forces, every uid element would experience an unbalanced torque that will cause it to accelerate to innite rotational speeds. Note that the pressure contribution is already symmetric; therefore must also be a symmetric tensor. 3 Besides the dierent kinds of stress tensors discussed above, we will deal with two other important tensors in this Unit: the momentum-ux tensor and the velocity gradient tensor. We will discuss the momentum-ux tensor here; the velocity gradient will be discussed later. We have seen before that the rate at which some physical quantity such as mass, energy, momentum etc. enter through a surface patch is generally written as rate of advective inow of ... through surface = (... per unit mass ) v n A , patch around a point on CV
3

(23)

In materials such as liquid-crystals, angular momentum can be conserved without a symmetric stress tensor!

MEC3451

Stress tensor

or alternatively, rate of advective inow of ... per = (... per unit mass ) v n . unit area at a point on CV

(24)

Just like the surface traction, the quantity on the left-hand side depends on the direction in which the surface patch is oriented. The underlined term on the right-hand side is a physical quantity that has the same units units of ... per unit time per unit areas as the left-hand side, but is however completely independent of n; this is analogous to the stress-tensor. Such terms are referred to as the advective ux of ... and are denoted Flux here by j. For example: jmass = v ; 1 2 jKE = v v; 2 jPE = (gh) v ; jparticles = (c) v ; jmomentum = (v) v ; (25) (26) (27) (28) (29)

here, h is the vertical height of the surface point from a datum, and c is the particle concentration eld (in particle units per unit mass of uid). In the last equation, the momentum ux must be a tensor because it dot-multiples with n to give a vector, the advective inow of momentum per unit area. On the righthand side we have which is a scalar; therefore, the quantity vv must be a tensor. Such a product of two vectors is quite dierent from a dot-product (which gives a scalar) or a crossproduct (which gives a vector). This product is known as a dyadic product, and such tensors are called dyads. In matrix Dyads

MEC3451

Stress tensor

form, vx vx vx vy vx vz v v vy vx vy vy vy vz vz vx vz vy vz vz

(30)

As an exercise, show that for any n [nx ny nz ]T , (vv) n = v(v n). Quantities such as advective uxes or the stress tensor always enter control-volume analysis through surface integrals. For instance, net rate of advective inow of ... = into a CV j... n dA .
CS

(31)

(Use the denitions above for uxes and compare the equation above with the expressions derived in previous weeks for net advective inow rates of mass, energy, momentum etc.) Similarly, the total surface force on a CV, Fsurface =
CS

f T dA =
CS

n dA .

(32)

The Gauss-Ostrogradski Theorem (GOTh), also known as the Divergence Theorem, is a powerful tool (we will see why exactly later) that allows us to covert such surface integrals to volume integrals. Essentially, according to the GOTh, given any control volume with a well-dened control surface, then ( ... ) n dA =
CS CV

( ... ) dV .

(33)

When this is applied to advective inow terms we get the fol-

10

MEC3451

Stress tensor

lowing: jmass n dA =
CS CS

v n dA =
CV

(v) dV ; (34) 1 ( v 2 )v 2 (35)

jKE n dA =
CS CS

1 ( v 2 )v n dA = 2 (gh)v n dA =

dV ;

CV

jPE n dA =
CS CS

( gh v) dV ;
CV

(36) jparticles n dA =
CS CS

cv n dA =
CV

( cv) dV ; (37)

jmomentum n dA =
CS CS

vv n dA =
CV

( vv ) dV . (38)

Applying the GOTh to surface forces gives Fsurface =

CS

n dA =
CV

dV .

(39)

11