CIVL2611/CIVL9611 Introductory Fluid Mechanics

2. Fluid Properties and Pressure Variation

2.1 Fluid properties

A. Density
Density is defined as mass per unit volume:

Density may depend on _______________ and _____________. See examples of water and air below.
The dependence is __________ for liquids, but _____________ for gases. Note the behaviour for
water, with a maximum density at ____oC under the atmospheric pressure (1 bar).

Density of water

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/

B. Specific volume
Specific volume is defined as volume per unit mass:

Not used much in fluid mechanics, but is used extensively in thermodynamics.

C. Specific weight
Specific weight is defined as weight per unit volume:

D. Specific gravity
Specific gravity is defined as:

2-1 Lecture Notes for CIVL2611/CIVL9611

where water 20 is the density of water at 20oC ( 998 kg/m3). Sometimes the reference density used is
that of water at 4oC ( _________ kg/m3). Need to know the reference density for the specific gravity.

E. Pressure
Pressure is the normal force per unit area applied to a surface.

F. Gauge pressure

Generally we are operating on the earth and are concerned with the pressure difference from
atmospheric. Refer to this as the gauge pressure.
p gauge = p patm

where the standard atmospheric pressure is Patm = _________ kPa. Usually we do not bother with the
subscript gauge, and unless otherwise stated, we will refer to the gauge pressure.

G. Ideal gas law

This is relevant to gases, and often dealt with in thermodynamics. However, there are fluids
applications too. The law relating pressure to the density and the temperature of an ideal gas is

p = RT
where p is the pressure, the density, and T is the absolute temperature measured in Kelvin (K).
T = oC + _________. R is the gas constant, R = 286.9 J/(kgK) for air at 15oC.

H. Bulk Modulus Ev
Bulk modulus is a measure of the compressibility of the fluid. It is defined as
dp
Ev = V (N/m2)
dV
So it has the units of ___________. It is the increase in pressure (dp) required to change the volume V
of a fluid by an amount dV. For most liquids, Ev is very large, as it takes a very high pressure to make a
small change in the volume. Typically, we assume that liquids are ________________. Gases on the
other hand are very __________________.

I. Viscosity
Viscosity is a measure of the amount of _____________ developed inside a fluid when it is in motion.
Consider a simple idealized experiment. A fixed plate and a plate moving with velocity u contain a fluid

2-2 Lecture Notes for CIVL2611/CIVL9611

as shown. We observe that the fluid adjacent to the moving plate is moving with velocity u, but the
fluid adjacent to the stationary plate is stationary. That is, the fluid sticks to the plate in each case,
and takes the velocity of the plate. This is called a ______________ condition.
That means that there is a varying velocity from one plate to the other, and it turns out that it is often
a linear variation. If we plot the velocity as a function of the position between the plates we get

u
y

Fluid

where the arrows signify the direction of the flow, and the peak velocity is u.
Since friction against the stationary plate is holding the fluid back, there will need to be a force F
applied to the moving plate to make it move. It is found that the force is proportional to the velocity
gradient and the surface area of the moving plate, i.e.

F
If we define a shear stress as = , then the shear stress is proportional to the velocity gradient in
A
the direction normal to the flow. The proportionality depends on the fluid property viscosity. This
gives us a definition of the viscosity of the fluid:

where is the absolute viscosity (or ___________viscosity) with units _________or__________.

The velocity gradient may be interpreted as the rate of shearing strain as illustrated below:
d u Displacement (deformation) Strain
= =
dy Time Length Time
So in a fluid stress is proportional to the rate of shearing strain. Fluids which obey this relationship are
du
called Newtonian fluids, and the equation = is called Newtons Law of Viscosity.
dy
Not all fluids are Newtonian. Water and air are examples of fluids which are Newtonian to a good
approximation, but fluids like blood are ______________________ fluids.
Strain thickening fluids: The viscosity _________________ with shear, e.g. corn-flour mixed with
water, quicksand.
Strain thinning fluids: Viscosity ___________________ with shear, e.g. hair shampoo, paint.

2-3 Lecture Notes for CIVL2611/CIVL9611

J. Kinematic viscosity

We often use the kinematic viscosity, = , which has units ___________. This is useful as we

often divide quantities by density if it is a constant and by using the density will disappear from the
equations.
Viscosity depends on temperature for liquids the viscosity __________ as the temperature increases;
for gases the viscosity ____________ as the temperature increases. This is true for both and .

Example 1:
A 4-m long and 0.6-m wide belt moves on the surface of a very long tank of water at 15.6oC as shown
below. The belt moves at a speed of 10 m/s and it is assumed that there is no slippage on the surface,
and that the velocity of the water depends linearly on the depth. What is the power required to drive
the belt? (for water = 1.1210-3 Ns/m2)

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2.2 Pressure variation in a stationary fluid Hydrostatics
The use of the word statics implies that we are dealing with something stationary, so hydrostatics is to
do with stationary fluids. In what follows, we will always assume that the fluid is stationary.

A. Pressure as a scalar quantity

Pressure is the force per unit area in a fluid. By using the word area, we are implicitly saying that
there is a surface which has an area. So p = F/A, where A is the area of a surface on which the pressure
is acting. Pressure is defined at a point, so any surface which passes through that point could be used.
The pressure does not change for different surfaces, but the direction of the resulting force is always
perpendicular to the surface. Pressure itself has no _____________, but has _____________.

B. Pressure variation in horizontal directions

Take a container of fluid of depth H. Inside that container, we take a small box of fluid a distance Z
below the surface, where the axes are as shown, with the origin at the surface, so that the box is at
z = Z

The dimensions of the box are l, w and h. If we look at the box in a larger scale it is as shown below.
Now we let the pressure at the left hand face be pL and the pressure at the right hand face be pR. The
pressure force on the left hand face from outside is FL and the force on the right hand face from
outside is FR in the directions shown,

and FL = ___________ and FR = ___________, where these are magnitudes of the forces as the
directions of the forces have been identified above.
The fluid is stationary, and thus in static equilibrium, so in the x direction, FL = FR , or

_______________. In other words, if the fluid is stationary, there is no variation of pressure in the x

2-5 Lecture Notes for CIVL2611/CIVL9611

direction. We could also prove that there is no variation of pressure in the y direction. Therefore, there
is no variation of pressure in _______________ directions in a stationary fluid.

C. Pressure variation in the vertical direction

Suppose that the pressure on the top face is pT and the pressure on the bottom face is pB. Then there
are resultant forces acting on the box FT (= __________) and FB (= __________) as shown. There is an
additional force, the weight of fluid in the box, Mg (= ____________).

The static equilibrium gives

FT + FB Mg = 0
Then after substitution and some cancellations we have
pT p B
= g
h
This is the same as saying
Change in p
= g
Change in z
Or if these changes are small, the left hand side of the above equation becomes dp/dz. Therefore, the
pressure variation in the vertical direction is governed by the following basic hydrostatics equation

D. Pressure at a depth
If we have a container of fluid, with the surface at z = 0 where the pressure is p0, then we get the
pressure at some depth H (i.e. at z = H ) by integrating the hydrostatic equation with respect to z
from z = 0 to z = H , which gives

The above integration assumes that is ______________. If that is not the case, then the variation in
needs to be included in the integral on the right hand side. The above derivations can be done in a
differential way, which is mathematically better than the above. See Munson et al. (2010) Sections 2.2
and 2.3.

2-6 Lecture Notes for CIVL2611/CIVL9611

2.3 Pressure measurement

A. Barometer

B. Piezometer

C. U-Tube manometer

Sometimes one end is open to the atmosphere say pB is atmospheric. In this case we would simply
remove fluid 3 and find the difference between the pressure at A and atmospheric.

D. Mechanical Devices

Pressure transducers measure the deflection of a diaphragm.

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Example 2:
Consider a very tall column of air (many thousands of metres) above the earth surface. The density of air is
not constant since air is compressible. Assume the air column is at a uniform temperature T and satisfies
the Ideal Gas Law p = RT, where p is the pressure, is the density of air, R is the gas constant, and T is the
absolute temperature. The pressure at the surface is p0. Calculate the pressure at a height z above the
surface.

Under these conditions, what is the gauge pressure at a height of 1000 m, if the temperature is 15oC?
(Take R = 286.9 J/kgK)

2-8 Lecture Notes for CIVL2611/CIVL9611