CHAPTER 2 FUNDAMENTAL EQUATIONS OF COMPRESSIBLE VISCOUS FLOW 2-1 INTRODUCTION ‘The equations of viscous flow have been known for more than 100 years. In their complete form, these equations are very difficult to solve, even on modem digital computers. In fact, at high Reynolds numbers (turbulent flow), the equations are, in effect, impossible to solve with present mathesnatical techniques because the bound- ary conditions become randomly time-dependent, Nevertheless, it is very insteuctive to derive and discuss these fundamental equations because they give many insights, yield several particular solutions, and can be examined for modeling Iaws. Also, these exact equations can then be simplified, using Prandit's boundary-layer approx- imations. The resulting simpler system is very practical and yields many fruitful engineering solutions. 2-2 CLASSIFICATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATIONS, The basic equations considered here are the three laws of conservation for physical systems 1. Conservation of mass (continuity) 2. Conservation of momentum (Newton's second law) 3. Conservation of energy (first law of thermodynamics) 59