Understanding Aerodynamics: Arguing from the Real Physics

Contents

Foreword

Series Preface

Preface

List of Symbols

1 Introduction to the Conceptual Landscape

2 From Elementary Particles to Aerodynamic Flows

3 Continuum Fluid Mechanics and the Navier-Stokes Equations

3.1 The Continuum Formulation and Its Range of Validity

3.2 Mathematical Formalism

3.3 Kinematics: Streamlines, Streaklines, Timelines, and Vorticity

3.3.1 Streamlines and Streaklines

3.3.2 Streamtubes, Stream Surfaces, and the Stream Function

3.3.3 Timelines

3.3.4 The Divergence of the Velocity and Green's Theorem

3.3.5 Vorticity and Circulation

3.3.6 The Velocity Potential in Irrotational Flow

3.3.7 Concepts that Arise in Describing the Vorticity Field

3.3.8 Velocity Fields Associated with Concentrations of Vorticity

3.3.9 The Biot-Savart Law and the “Induction” Fallacy

3.4 The Equations of Motion and their Physical Meaning

3.4.1 Continuity of the Flow and Conservation of Mass

3.4.2 Forces on Fluid Parcels and Conservation of Momentum

3.4.3 Conservation of Energy

3.4.4 Constitutive Relations and Boundary Conditions

3.4.5 Mathematical Nature of the Equations

3.4.6 The Physics as Viewed in the Eulerian Frame

3.4.7 The Pseudo-Lagrangian Viewpoint

3.5 Cause and Effect, and the Problem of Prediction

3.6 The Effects of Viscosity

3.7 Turbulence, Reynolds Averaging, and Turbulence Modeling

3.8 Important Dynamical Relationships

3.8.1 Galilean Invariance, or Independence of Reference Frame

3.8.2 Circulation Preservation and the Persistence of Irrotationality

3.8.3 Behavior of Vortex ...