Fundamentals of Theoretical and Experimental Aerodynamics

Professor Arnab Roy

Department of Aerospace Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Lecture 8
Fluid Element trajectories, Angular velocity, vorticity
In this lecture we will continue with our discussion on fluid elements trajectory and further we
are going to look at angular velocity and vorticity of a fluid element.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:42)

So, these are the concepts which we will cover in this lecture.
(Refer Slide Time: 0:54)

These are the key points.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:59)

So, let us recall that in the previous lecture we discussed about streamlines and we also took an
example problem in which we determined the equation of streamline. We will take our efforts
forward by next discussing path lines and then we will go back to that problem and we will
obtain the path lines equation using the data given in that problem.
Let us look at the definition of pathlines. A pathline is a line traced out in time by a given fluid
particle as it moves through the flow field. So, we are going to track a given fluid particle or a
fluid element and all the way in time we are going to follow it as it moves through the flow field.
So, the line that it will trace in the process will be called as the pathline, it is very important to
notice these words ‘given fluid particle’.

Now, since the particle under consideration is going to move with the fluid at its local velocity
because it is just been taken to different points by the effect of the overall flow movement, the
pathlines must satisfy the following equations that dx/dt should be equal to the local flow
velocity component u, dy/dt should be equal to the local v component of velocity, similarly dz/dt
should be equal to the local w component of velocity, where u, v, w together define the velocity
field from point to point.

And these are essentially the time rate of change of the position vector, the equation of the
pathlines that passes through the point x naught, y naught, z naught at time equal to 0, you
remember that this was part of the initial condition, will then be the solution to the above set of
equations which satisfies the initial condition that at t equal to 0 these were the values, that
means at t equal to 0 the particle was located at this point, at this location, and subsequently the
locations changed.

Finally, the solution that you get must be in this form, that x is function of x naught, y naught, z
naught and t, that means it is a function of its original location as well as t. As t, as the time t
takes on all values greater than 0, the coordinates of the fluid particle will be available from the
above three equations, and therefore with that information one can trace the required pathline.
(Refer Slide Time: 4:12)

Keeping this concept in mind let us try to go back to that problem, so we remember the last time
equation of the streamline at t equal to 0 was given by x equal to y. Now, for the pathline let us
see how we take it forward. For the pathline we remember that the conditions are like this dx/dt
is equal u, dy/dt is equal to v and for us the dz/dt or w does not matter because it is in the x, y
plain only.

How do we take it forward from this point, we know the functional form u was equal to 1 plus 4t
times x, and v was equal to y, you have to rearrange it slightly dx by x is equal to 1 plus 4t times
dt, this is how you rearrange this part, how do you rearrange the other part, the v component? u
dy by y equals v dt, sorry there is no v over here, let us cancel it, that is it just dt.

Now, let us integrate it, so what you will get out of the integration is natural log x and then once
you integrate this other part you will get t plus 2t square and let us have a constant say Cx, so
finally we absorb that constant and we say that when we remove the natural log it becomes x is
equal to C1 times e to the power of t into 1 plus 2t, so this is the equation for x.

So, you can see that it is actually going to tell us what is the location of that fluid element at a
given time, so when you substitute a time on 0 time here you will get the location of the particle
as long as you know the value of C1. That C1 value of course has to be worked out from initial
condition, we will do it later. From the other equation when you integrate you get natural log y is
t plus some integration constant Cy and then finally define it as C2 e to the power of t.

(Refer Slide Time: 6:53)

From these two equations as we can see there are two arbitrary constant C1 and C2 we have to
obtain them, let us use the initial condition for that. So, the particle should have passed the point
(1, 1) at t equal to 0, so if you substitute that condition you will get this 1 is equal to C1 e to the
power of 0 times 1 plus 2 into 0, so which gives you C1 that means C1 is equal to 1, from the
equation involving the v component of velocity we will get 1 is equal to C2 e to the power of 0
which is C2 and therefore C1 and C2 are both equal to 1.

Which means that now you have the equations available where you can obtain the coordinates x
and y as a function of t, that means t has to be substituted and you then get back x and y. But can
you obtain an equation where just the connection between x and y is there and you can remove
the parameter t. So, these two questions are in a parametric form, where t is the parameter, can
we remove the parameter altogether, let us take a try to do that.
(Refer Slide Time: 8:23)

You can figure out that natural log y is equal to t, that is from the second equation, that is from y
equation, if you just take the log of that equation you get this. Making use of that you can very
easily show that x is equal to y to the power of 1 plus 2 log y, that is what the outcome would be.
This is basically the equation of the pathline followed by the fluid particle as it crosses the point
(1, 1) at t equal to 0. While in the previous form if you remember it was a parametric form where
other values of t could be substituted.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:28)

So, we saw what pathlines are all about, let us take the discussion forward.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:32)

We will now look at streaklines. What are streaklines? They are or let us define it in a single line,
streakline is a line traced out by a neutrally buoyant marker fluid that is continuously injected
into a flow field at a fixed point in space. The marker fluid may be smoke if the main flow
involves air or some other gas or a dye, if the main flow involves water or some other liquid.

So, it is essentially playing the role of a neutrally buoyant marker fluid. What do we mean by
neutrally buoyant? We mean that though the marker fluid is separate from the mother fluid in
which it is being injected, but the densities are identical, therefore there is no buoyancy effect
that works on the marker fluid, it is just laden from one region to the other along with the
velocity field of the mother fluid, that is very important, because the fluid which is injected into
the flow will otherwise either artificially rise or fall because of a difference in density.

Though it is a concept but it is a very, very important concept, you will see later that when we
discuss experiments in fluids and we talk about particle image velocimetry, we are going to put
tracer particles into the flow field and the density of those particles effectively have to match
with mother flow. Now, taking this concept further we would like to recall that we have seen
smoke getting emitted from the top of chimneys, the smoke is being released from the top of the
chimney and the surroundings flow field takes the smoke away. The smoke trail that you see at a
given instant of time is somewhat similar to a streakline as long as it follows this principle, it
does not always do so though.

A particle of the marker fluid, that is at a location x, y, z at time t must have passed through the
injection points x naught, y naught, z naught at some earlier time t equal to tau, then the time
history of this particle may be obtained by solving the equations for the pathline, that means this
is the streakline, remember that it is different from a pathline, if this is streakline, the streakline
comprises of many, many particles, one after the other, which are released from that injection
point. Particles are being continuously released and they are following one after the other, this
particular line which we are calling as streakline, while the pathline was what? The pathline was
a single fluid element, we followed it all along as it travelled.

So, here it is a collection of particles and their trajectory, here it is a single particle and its
trajectory. Now, remember, if you take a specific particle, let us say this particle here, it may not
have followed the same line as the streakline to reach that point, it may have had its own pathline
which may be slightly different from the streakline and reach that point, the neighboring particle
also may have had a slightly different pathline but when you look at the collection of particles
they form this line which is called as streakline.

So, keeping this point in view is very, very important, that a particular particle (comprised of the
string of particles of the marker fluid) must have passed through the injection point at some
earlier time t equal to tau and then the time history of this particle may be obtained by solving
the equations of the pathline, like what we did in the previous problem.

Subject to this initial condition that particular particle which forms a part of the streakline must
have been located at that injection point at an earlier time t equal to tau. This is a very, very
important concept and if you look at each particle which forms the streakline, each particle
would have a history like this, that another particle would have been there at this point at a
slightly different time, let us say tau minus delta t or tau plus delta t and so on, depending on in
which sequence that particle was injected into the stream.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:28)

As t takes on all possible values in this range tau less than equal to t, all fluid particles on the
streakline will be obtained, all these fluid particles have emerged from the injection point at
some point of time tau which lies in the above time corridor. So, when you solve these equations
finally you are solving this problem subject to the initial condition and final solution should then
come out as x as a function of x naught, y naught, z naught t as well as tau, the same is for y and
z, as t takes on the values tau less than equal to t, these equations will define the instantaneous
location of that streakline. You may have noticed that when we observe the smoke trail
emanating from a chimney its appearance changes with passage of time, every instant of time
defines a corresponding smoke streakline.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:40)

So, keeping these concepts in mind, let us go back to the problem and now let us try to solve that
problem, in light of streakline. So, this is where we ended last time for the pathline and now we
are going to work out the streakline. So, what did we already solve as a part of the pathline
calculations we had already solved up to this x is equal to C1 e to the power of t, 1 plus 2t, y is
equal to C2 e to the power of t in the parametric form and then we had worked out the constants
C1 and C2.

Here we have to be a little careful at this stage, the initial condition is referring to one of the
particles in the entire streakline and that one particle would have crossed x equal to 1, y equal to
1 at a specific time t equal to tau. What does that mean? If you fit this condition for that specific
particle, what it means is it will give you a condition like this, the two equations will yield two
conditions like this, from the first equation you get C1 is equal to e to the power of minus tau
times 1 plus 2 tau, second equation will give you e to the power of minus tau, these are going to
be the values of the constants.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:18)

And then if you plug them in, if you get an x equation which looks like this and y equation will
look like this. You see it has dependency on both t and tau. Now, at t equal to 0 these above
equations will yield what? They will yield e to the power of minus tau into 1 plus 2 tau and y is
equal to e to the power of minus tau. So, you have now got parametric equations, expressing the
coordinates x, y, so the parameter is tau now, tau is the parameter.

Again we have to eliminate it to get it purely in the form of x and y, so what can we do if we take
a natural log of this equation you get natural log y is equal to minus tau, so tau is equal to minus
ln y, if you plug this into the x equation what do you get? You get x is equal to y to the power of
1 minus 2 log y, this effectively will be the streakline equation.

What does it indicate? It indicates the trajectory of that specific fluid particle which is being
injected from the point (x naught, y naught), where in this case it is (1, 1) at t equal to 0, that is
what this equation tells you. If you compare the three equations streamline, pathline and
streakline, you will find the difference between the three, you can try plotting them.

So, we saw that when you have an unsteady flow field, the functional representation of the
streamline, pathline and streakline will vary from each other, at home you can try out another
flow field where you just have a steady flow, that means no time dependence and then check for
yourself whether the streamline, pathline and streakline equations match with each other or not.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:55)

With this we end the discussion on particle trajectories, we will go to the next topic.

(Refer slide Time: 20:03)

We will look at Angular Velocity and Vorticity of a fluid element. So, we are following a fluid
element that is what we ended up doing when we were discussing about pathlines and
streaklines, so in one case, we were following one particular fluid element, in another case we
were looking at fluid elements which were being injected continuously from an injection point
and they were behaving like neutrally buoyant marker particles.
So, in both the cases we were following fluid elements but we never bothered about the point
that whether the fluid elements shape and size and orientation etcetera changed as it moved
through the flow field, we were only concerned about its location and since it was an
infinitesimal fluid element it was not very easy to address the issue of change of shape, size,
orientation, etcetera, when we were mainly focusing on the trajectory aspect.

Now, we are zooming deeper into the flow field and we are looking at the fluid element in a
much more zoomed sense, so that we can even capture more details about its orientation and
shape as it moves through the flow field. So this simple sketch tells us that yes, indeed when it
moves through the flow field, it may be following streamlines like one we have shown over here
and we recall that the velocity vector which is existing at this locality is basically carrying it
from one location to the other.

We find that the cuboidal fluid element at time t seems to have changed its orientation or shape
by the time it reached another location some time later, t plus delta t, how can we analyze the
change in a simplistic manner to begin with? For that we will consider the problem as through it
was a planar problem or it was a two-dimensional problem.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:08)

So, instead of the three-dimensional fluid element we are now looking at a two-dimensional
element to begin with, so that we get the picture easily and then we try to extend it into a three
dimensional situation. So, we see a fluid element which is conveniently taken as a square or
rectangular element just because of some of the conveniences associated with this simpler shape
and then we follow it from time t to t plus delta t.

So, what is a rectangular element at time t, seems to be more like a rhombus or a parallelogram
at time t plus delta t, it is only for the representation sake that we have shown the things in more
qualitative sense. Now, if you look at the dimensions it has dx and dy dimensions here and at the
point A which is the lower left corner of that element at time t it has velocity components u and
v. Now, as you know as you move from one point to the other in the flow field the velocity is
going to change, so if you go dx distance from the point A to the point C, by the time you reach
there both u and v would have changed.

Now, we are concentrating more on v and its change because we have some idea in mind for
doing this, we will see later why. And then similarly as we move from the point A to point B
which is dy distance away along the y direction, the velocity u would have changed by some
amount and these changes are of course represented in the form of partial derivatives of the
velocities along those directions multiplied by the length.

So, here its partial derivative of the v velocity component, del v/del x because we are moving
along the x direction and then we multiply it with the length over which we have moved, here we
have moved along y direction, so we are looking at the gradient of u along y direction, del u/ del
y and multiplying it with a distance by which we have moved.

So, those define the u and v at the point B and C respectively. Now, if these differences in
velocities exist for some time, they will make those points to traverse by different amounts
compared to A, so when we look at the same fluid element at time t plus delta t we find that the
point C and the point B have moved in a manner which is not identical to the point A and
therefore the fluid element has changed its shape. So, how can we quantify those amounts? We
will again have to take care of this del v/del x into del x and then multiply it with the time
interval over which it was effective in order to find out that how much differentially the point C
has moved with respect to point A along the y direction.
In the same manner, how much the point B has moved from the point A along the x direction,
this is how the quantities would matter. So, what we found through this diagram was that as the
fluid element translates along the streamline it can rotate and in addition its shape may become
distorted, which is apparent from this sketch when you compare between these two geometries,
the amount of rotation and distortion depends on the velocity field. And as we take the analysis
forward, it will become clear in due course that the velocity field is influencing the rotation and
distortion.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:38)

Now, during this analysis we of course assume that the element moves from the initial location at
time t to the new location at time t plus delta t depending on the u’s and v’s which exist at this
point. And we notice that there are angular displacements of the sides of the edges AC and AB
during that period of time, you can notice that the side AC has moved in the counterclockwise
direction by a small angle delta theta 2 and side AB has moved clockwise by an angle minus
delta theta 1 during this time, during this time, so this is counter clockwise, and this is clockwise.

So, we will follow the convention that counter clockwise rotations would be considered as
positive in this analysis. Of course, you will have to be careful about the different sign
conventions that we are following in different contexts. You may recall that when we were
integrating pressure and shear stress on a body, we had followed a certain sign convention.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:07)

Let us take this analysis a little further. You first look at the side AC and observe how it evolves
over time interval delta t. So, as we discussed, distance moved by point A along y direction
during the time interval delta t is t times delta t. Of course, at the same time, it would have
moved u times delta t along the x direction.

But we are not so concerned about that, as far as rotation of the side AC is concerned, that is why
we are keeping silent about this part we are more busy analyzing the v part. Since the point C is
at a distance dx from A as we explained that it has a slightly different v component of velocity
there and therefore you would displace by a different rate.

And when it applies for a time interval delta t, this is the net displacement in y direction of the
point C with respect to point A and therefore, from the geometry, you can define the tan of that
angle delta theta 2 and since it is counterclockwise it is positive and then you can work out that
its del v/del x into delta t. If we take it to be a small angle, because if you allow it very small
time, then the rotation will also be a very small angle. Therefore, we can assume it to be
approximately equal to delta theta 2 in radians and combining the findings you can define delta
theta 2 like this, del v/del x into delta 2.
(Refer Slide Time: 29:52)

Now, if you look at the side AB and observe how it is evolving over time delta t, here we are
more concerned about the u field, so when you look at the u field, this is the velocity which was
existing at the point B at time t and when it applies for delta t time that is how much it will move
and with respect to A it would move by this amount. So, this is the displacement of B, this is the
displacement A, so this is basically the net displacement of the point B with respect to A. And
that again defines another angle that is the delta theta 1 but this time clockwise, so negative,
comes out to be this.

Again, since that angle is small, you define delta theta 1 like this, so you now have an estimate of
delta theta 1 and delta theta 2 and let us define the angular velocities of these lines as the time
rate of change of these angles theta 1 and theta 2, so what we are going to do is d theta 1/ dt is
limit delta t tends to 0 the ratio of delta theta 1 by delta t, which gives us minus del u/ del y.
Again, d theta 2/dt is limit delta t tends to 0 delta theta 2 by delta t, which gives us dv/dx from
these equations. So, we have come very close to putting these results together, and finally,
getting the result for the angular velocity.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:25)

So, by definition, angular velocity, as seen in the x, y plane is the average of the angular velocity
of the lines AB and AC, so the two lines are moving at a certain rate in an angular sense, and you
are taking the average of that. So, it is essentially arithmetic average of these two, which in terms
of the velocity field is gradients of the two velocity components. So, now you find the
connection between angular velocity and the gradients of the velocity field components.

So, here we are considering only the effect in the x, y plane, but in a three-dimensional motion,
effect in other planes will also come in and in general the angular velocity will have multiple
components. Here we are marking it as z component because that is the component which is
coming out of the x, y plane, let us say, in three-dimensional space, it will have different
components along i and j as well not only k because the omega z is having the k component
while the omega x is along i, omega y along j and so on.

And the complete vectorial representation comes like this, which can be worked out once you go
to other planes and work out the other two components. Here we have just worked out this
component in the x, y plane, so the above equation expresses the angular velocity of the fluid
element in terms of the derivatives of the velocity components.

So, we notice very keenly that the angular velocity of the fluid element is entirely governed by
the fluid flow field. How it rotates, how it distorts is all dependent on the velocity field. Vorticity
is a very, very important term in aerodynamics, it is defined as the curl of the velocity vector
which is del cross V; incidentally that is two times this angular velocity, we will discuss more on
these in later lectures.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:46)

Let us conclude by saying that we completed our discussion on fluid element trajectories in this
lecture, we discussed more on pathlines and streaklines. Subsequently, we discussed about the
angular velocity and vorticity of a fluid element as it travels through the flow field. Thank you.