Mechanical Engineering Department

Fluid Mechanics
• Introduction
– Fluid mechanics: the branch of physics (or applied mechanics) which is
concerned with the behavior of fluids at rest or in motion.
– Both liquids and gases are fluids.
– Fluid mechanics p principles
p and conceptsp are often involved in the study y and
analysis of thermal systems
– This field includes many problems: blood flow in the capillaries, flow of air
around an airplane, flow of crude oil in oil pipelines, …etc.
– Fluid mechanics is divided into: fluid statics (studying fluids at rest) and
fluid dynamics (studying fluids in motion).

• Fluid Statics
– The only forces of interest are due to the pressure acting on the surfaces of a
fluid element and the weight of the fluid element.
– Investigation of pressure and its variation throughout a fluid at rest, and the
effect of pressure on submerged or partially submerged surfaces.

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Fluid Statics
• Pressure Variation in a Fluid at Rest
– Pressure: the normal force per unit area at a given point acting on a given
plane within a fluid mass of interest.
– Consider a small, stationary element of fluid at some arbitrary position within
a mass of fluid
– There are two types of forces acting on this element:
• surface forces due to the pressure, and
• body force equal to the weight of the element, which can be written as

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Fluid Statics
– From the equilibrium of the fluid element,

– Therefore, we obtain

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Fluid Statics
– for incompressible fluid (ρ = constant)

– The distance h = z2 – z1 is called the pressure head

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Fluid Statics
– The hydrostatic pressure distribution p at any depth h below the free surface of a
liquid is given by

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Fluid Statics

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Fluid Statics
• Measurement of Pressure
– absolute pressure or gage pressure.
– Absolute pressure is measured relative to absolute zero pressure (+).
– Gage pressure is measured relative to the local atmospheric pressure (+/–).
– A negative gage pressure is also referred to as a suction or a vacuum pressure.
– Thermodynamic analyses use absolute pressure.
– However, most fluid mechanics analyses use gage pressure for convenience

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Fluid Statics
– The measurement of atmospheric pressure is usually accomplished with a
mercury barometer

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Fluid Statics
• Manometry
– A standard technique for measuring pressure which uses liquid columns in
vertical or inclined tubes.
– Pressure measuring devices based on this technique are called manometers.
– The mercury y barometer is an example
p of one type
yp of manometer
– Two other common types of manometers include the piezometer tube and the
U-tube manometer.

– Piezometer Tube
• Simplest type of manometer consisting of a vertical tube, open at the top, and
attached to a container in which the pressure is to be measured

• Absolute pressure

• Gauge pressure
• Disadv.: p1 must be greater than p0 , p1-p0 should be small, fluid must be liquid
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Fluid Statics
• U-Tube Manometer
– To overcome the difficulties associated with piezometer, another type of
manometer that is widely used consists of a tube formed into the shape of a U
– The fluid in the manometer is called the gage fluid.

– p2 = p3
– p1 + γ1 h1 = p0 + γ2 h2

– Gage pressure

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Fluid Statics
– The U-tube manometer is also widely used to measure the difference in
pressure between two containers or two points in a given system.

– p2 = p3
– pA + γ1 h1 = pB + γ3 h3 + γ2 h2

– Specific Gravity
• The specific weight, , of a liquid such as the gage fluid is often expressed in terms
of the specific gravity, SG, by the following relationship (ρwater = 1000 kg/m3)

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Fluid Statics
• Mechanical and Electronic Pressure Measuring Devices
– Manometers are suitable to measure very high, or rapidly changing pressures.
– They, also, require the measurement of one or more column heights.
– Numerous other pressure-measuring instruments have been developed.
– Most of these use the idea that when a pressure acts on an elastic structure the
structure will deform. This deformation is related to magnitude of pressure.
– Bourdon Pressure Gage
• The most common type of its type.
• The essential mechanical element in this gage is bourdon tube.
• As the pressure within the tube increases, the tube tends to straighten
• This can be translated into the motion of a pointer on a dial.
• The indicated pressure is gage pressure, which can be positive or negative.

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Fluid Statics
– Pressure Transducer
• For many applications in which pressure measurements are recorded, the pressure
must be measured with a device that converts pressure into an electrical output.
• This type of pressure measuring device is called a pressure transducer
• Many different designs exists.

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Fluid Statics
• Hydrostatic Force on a Horizontal Plane Surface
– If a surface is submerged in a fluid, forces acts on the surface due to the fluid.
– Determining these forces is important to design many hydraulic structures.
– In fluids at rest, the force must be perpendicular to the surface.
– This pressure varies linearly with depth, if the fluid is incompressible.
incompressible
– Horizontal submerged surface Æ uniform pressure , the magnitude of
the resultant force is FR = p A , p = γ h (resultant force acts through the
centroid of the area).
– Vertical submerged surface Æ pressure is not uniform p = γ h

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Fluid Statics
• Hydrostatic Force on an Inclined Plane Surface
– A submerged surface of arbitrary shape makes an angle θ with the free surface.
– Determine the resultant force:
• Direction, Location, Magnitude
g on dA is dF = γγhdA
– The force acting
– dF is perpendicular to the surface.
– Integrating over the surface, we get

– If γ is constant

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Fluid Statics

– yc is the y-coordinate of the centroid measured from x axis, passing through O

– Then,

– Resultant hydrostatic force will be

the magnitude of the resultant force is

equal to the pressure at the centroid of
the area multiplied by the total area

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Fluid Statics
– The point through which the resultant force acts is called the center of pressure
– The y-coordinate of the resultant force, yR, can be determined by summation of
moments around the x-axis. That is

Ixc is the second moment of the area A with espect

to an axis passing through the centroid of A.

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Fluid Statics

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Fluid Statics
• Buoyancy
– When a body is completely or partially submerged in a fluid, the resultant
fluid force acting on the body is called the buoyant force.
– A net upward vertical force results from the pressure increase with depth
– Pressure forces acting from below are larger than those from above.
– From elementary physics, the buoyant force is given by

The buoyant force has a magnitude equal to the weight of the fluid displaced
by the body, and is directed vertically upward [Archimedes’ Principle]
– Example:
Consider a spherical buoy having a diameter of 1.5
15
m and weighing 8.50 kN that is anchored to the sea
floor with a cable
Assume that the buoy is completely immersed.
In this case, what would be the tension in the cable?

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