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Course Descriptions

MECH_ENG 373: Engineering Fluid Mechanics

Prerequisites

Description

ME 373 is the second course in fluid mechanics for undergraduates. ME undergraduates are required to take either Thermodynamics II (ME 370) or this course as a part of the mechanical engineering curriculum. Most undergraduates take it during their junior year. This course essentially picks up where ME 241 leaves off. Unlike ME 241, where the subject of fluid mechanics was developed by "synthesis" starting from elementary ideas on the nature of fluids, this course takes as its starting point the fundamental equations of fluid flow and proceeds by way of "analysis" to explore its myriad consequences and applications. These areas are laid out as broad swaths of contiguous "territories": viscous flows, inviscid flows, "almost" inviscid flows (boundary layer theory), compressible flows, and so on. As we travel through this "landscape," theoretical principles are applied to a wide variety of practical problems.

Who Takes It

ME 373 is the second course in fluid mechanics for undergraduates. ME undergraduates are required to take either Thermodynamics II (ME 370) or this course as a part of the required 11 courses in mechanical engineering. Most undergraduates take it during their junior year.

What It's About

In ME 241 (a prerequisite for this course) the concept of a fluid and its properties was introduced. The subject was then developed by a method of "synthesis" by systematically applying Newton's laws to fluid elements culminating in the fundamental equations of fluid flow — the Euler system of equations (if the fluid is inviscid) or the Navier-Stokes equations in the case of viscous flows. In this course we follow a complementary approach. After giving a brief review of the fundamental equations of fluid flow, we use the method of "analysis" to unravel the physical content of these equations. In the process, we learn about a variety of fluid phenomena and its applications such as: supersonic flow and the principles of design of jet engines, viscous boundary layers and the consequent drag on airplane wings, the concept of vorticity and how it describes phenomena such as tornadoes etc.

Lectures

The course meets four days per week for 50-minute lectures. Topics Include:

• Steady viscous flows (exact solutions)
  • Poiseuille flow in round pipes
  • Couette flow between parallel plates
• Inviscid flows
  • concept of vorticity and the generalized Bernoulli theorem
  • irrotational (or potential) flows - the velocity potential and the stream function
• Compressible layers
  • one dimensional isentropic flows - the Laval nozzle
  • Shocks
• Boundary layers
  • Prandtl's boundary layer theory for "almost" inviscid flows

Assignments/Evaluation

Homework, mid-term, take-home exam, final exam

Textbook

Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics, 6th Edition by Munson, Young, and Okiishi, Wiley 2009