Flow Over Bodies Friction and Pressure Drag-2
Flow Over Bodies Friction and Pressure Drag-2
Flow Over Bodies Friction and Pressure Drag-2
• The friction drag is the component of the wall shear force in the direction of flow,
• it depends on the orientation of the body as well as the magnitude of the wall shear stress tw.
• The friction drag is zero for a flat surface normal to flow, and maximum for a flat surface parallel
to flow since
• the friction drag in this case equals the total shear force on the surface.
• for parallel flow over a flat surface, the drag coefficient is equal to the friction drag coefficient,
or simply the friction coefficient.
• Friction drag is a strong function of viscosity, and increases with increasing viscosity.
• The Reynolds number is inversely proportional to the viscosity of the fluid.
• the contribution of friction drag to total drag for blunt bodies is less at higher Reynolds
numbers and may be negligible at very high Reynolds numbers. The drag in such cases is
mostly due to pressure drag.
• At low Reynolds numbers, most drag is due to friction drag.
• Especially the case for highly streamlined bodies such as airfoils.
• The friction drag is also proportional to the surface area.
• Bodies with a larger surface area experience a larger friction drag.
• Large commercial airplanes, for example, reduce their total surface area and thus their drag by retracting
their wing extensions when they reach cruising altitudes to save fuel.
• The friction drag coefficient is independent of surface roughness in laminar flow, but is a
strong function of surface roughness in turbulent flow due to surface roughness elements
protruding further into the boundary layer.
• The friction drag coefficient is analogous to the friction factor in pipe flow, and its value depends on the flow
regime.
• The pressure drag is proportional to the frontal area and to
the difference between the pressures acting on the front and
back of the immersed body.
• Therefore, the pressure drag is usually dominant for blunt
bodies, small for streamlined bodies such as airfoils, and zero
for thin flat plates parallel to the flow (Figure).
• The pressure drag becomes most significant when the
velocity of the fluid is too high for the fluid to be able to
follow the curvature of the body, and thus the fluid separates
from the body at some point and creates a very low pressure
region in the back.
• The pressure drag in this case is due to the large pressure difference
between the front and back sides of the body.
Reducing drag by streamlining
• The first thought that comes to mind to reduce drag is to streamline a body in
order to reduce flow separation and thus to reduce pressure drag.
• Even car sales people are quick to point out the low drag coefficients of their cars, owing to
streamlining.
• Streamlining has opposite effects on pressure and friction drags.
• It decreases pressure drag by delaying boundary layer separation and Thus
reducing the pressure difference between the front and back of the body and
increases the friction drag by increasing the surface area.
• The end result depends on which effect dominates.
• Any optimization study to reduce the drag of a body must consider both effects
and must attempt to minimize the sum of the two, as shown in Figure.
• The minimum total drag occurs at D/L = 0.25 for the case shown in Figure.
• For the case of a circular cylinder with the same thickness as the streamlined
shape of Figure, the drag coefficient would be about five times as much.
• It is possible to reduce the drag of a cylindrical component to one-fifth by the use
of proper fairings.
• The effect of streamlining on the drag coefficient can be described best by
considering long elliptical cylinders with different aspect (or length-to
thickness) ratios L/D,
• where L is the length in the flow direction and D is the thickness, as
shown in Figure.
• Note that the drag coefficient decreases drastically as the ellipse
becomes slimmer.
• For the special case of L/D = 1 (a circular cylinder), the drag coefficient is CD=
1 at this Reynolds number.
• As the aspect ratio is decreased and the cylinder resembles a flat plate, the
drag coefficient increases to 1.9, the value for a flat plate normal to flow.
• Note that the curve becomes nearly flat for aspect ratios greater than
about 4.
• For a given diameter D, elliptical shapes with an aspect ratio of about L/D = 4
usually offer a good compromise between the total drag coefficient and
length L
• The reduction in the drag coefficient at high aspect ratios is primarily due
to the boundary layer staying attached to the surface longer and the
resulting pressure recovery.
• The friction drag on an elliptical cylinder with an aspect ratio of 4 is
negligible (less than 2 percent of total drag at this Reynolds number).
• Streamlining has the added benefit of reducing vibration and noise.
• Streamlining should be considered only for blunt bodies that are
subjected to high-velocity fluid flow (and thus high Reynolds numbers)
for which flow separation is a real possibility.
• It is not necessary for bodies that typically involve low Reynolds number
flows.
Flow separation
• When driving on country roads, it is a common safety measure to slow down at
sharp turns in order to avoid being thrown off the road.
• Many drivers have learned the hard way that a car will refuse to comply when
forced to turn curves at excessive speeds.
• We can view this phenomenon as “the separation of cars” from roads. This
phenomenon is also observed when fast vehicles jump off hills. At low velocities,
the wheels of the vehicle always remain in contact with the road surface. But at
high velocities, the vehicle is too fast to follow the curvature of the road and takes
off at the hill, losing contact with the road.
• A fluid acts much the same way when forced to flow over a curved surface at high
velocities.
• A fluid climbs the uphill portion of the curved surface with no problem, but it has
difficulty remaining attached to the surface on the downhill side. At sufficiently
high velocities, the fluid stream detaches itself from the surface of the body. This is
called flow separation, figure.
• Flow can separate from a surface even if it is fully submerged in a
liquid or immersed in a gas (Figure).
• The location of the separation point depends on several factors such
as the Reynolds number, the surface roughness, and the level of
fluctuations in the free stream,
• is usually difficult to predict exactly where separation will occur
unless there are sharp corners or abrupt changes in the shape of the
solid surface.
• When a fluid separates from a body, it forms a separated region between
the body and the fluid stream. This low-pressure region behind the body
where recirculating and backflows occur is called the separated region.
• The larger the separated region, the larger the pressure drag. The effects
of flow separation are felt far downstream in the form of reduced velocity
(relative to the upstream velocity).
• The region of flow trailing the body where the effects of the body on
velocity are felt is called the wake (Figure).
• The separated region comes to an end when the two flow streams
reattach.
• Therefore, the separated region is an enclosed volume, whereas the wake
keeps growing behind the body until the fluid in the wake region regains
its velocity and the velocity profile becomes nearly flat again.
• Viscous and rotational effects are the most significant in the boundary
layer, the separated region, and the wake.
• The occurrence of separation is not limited to blunt bodies.
• Complete separation over the entire back surface may also occur on a
streamlined body
• such as an airplane wing at a sufficiently large angle of attack (larger than
about 15° for most airfoils), which is the angle the incoming fluid stream
makes with the chord (the line that connects the nose and the end) of the
wing. Flow separation on the top surface of a wing reduces lift drastically
and may cause the airplane to stall. Stalling has been blamed for many
airplane accidents and loss of efficiencies in turbomachinery (Figure).
Drag and lift are strongly dependent on the shape of the body, and any effect that causes the
shape to change has a profound effect on the drag and lift.
• For example, snow accumulation and ice formation on airplane Wings may change the shape of the
wings sufficiently to cause Significant loss of lift. This phenomenon has caused many airplanes to lose
altitude and crash and many others to abort takeoff.
• it has become a routine safety measure to check for ice or snow buildup on critical components of
airplanes before takeoff in bad weather.
• This is especially important for airplanes that have waited a long time on the runway before takeoff
because of heavy traffic.
• An important consequence of flow separation is the formation and shedding of circulating fluid
chunks, called vortices, in the wake region.
• The periodic generation of these vortices downstream is referred to as vortex shedding. This
phenomenon usually occurs during normal flow over long cylinders or spheres for Re >= 90.
• The vibrations generated by vortices near the body may cause the body to resonate to
dangerous levels if the frequency Of the vortices is close to the natural frequency of the body a
situation that must be avoided in the design of equipment that is subjected to high-velocity
fluid flow such as the wings of airplanes and suspended bridges subjected to steady high winds.
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