. Other Formulations

Then the irrotationality condition is identically satisfied, but substituting u and w into the conservation of mass results in

. Other Formulations . Other Formulations

In polar coordinates this is

This is the governing equation for potential flows, the Laplace equation. The perturbation velocity field is given by grad ф — , фф, (or in short notation

Vф). The boundary conditions become

VФ. П obstacle — (UІ + Vф).П obstacle — 0 (211)

Vф — 0 as x2 + z2 — ^ (2.11)

A streamfunction can be introduced: let ty(x, z) be the perturbation streamfunc – tion. The full stream function is & — Uz + ty(x, z). The perturbation velocity components are obtained from

дф дф u — , w — -­д z д x

(2.12)

then the equation of conservation of mass is identically satisfied and substituting u and w in the irrotationality condition yields

д2ф д2ф

л* — d + a zt — 0

(2.13)

In polar coordinates this is also

1 дф дф Vr — r ~дв’ Ve — – d7

(2.14)

д ( дф 1 д2ф dr Г dr + r дв2 0

(2.15)

This is the governing equation for the streamfunction. The streamfunction also satisfies Laplace equation. The boundary conditions, however, read

& obstacle = (Uz + Ф) obstacle = const-

g■ – f) – 0 as x2 + z2 (2J6)

The first condition results from the identity V&.tobstacle — 0, where t rep­resents a unit tangent vector to the solid surface (n. t — 0), which proves that & obstacie — const., the value of this constant is however not known a priori. The

Ф = const. lines are the streamlines of the flow. Solid obstacles are streamlines and conversely, streamlines can be materialized to represent a body surface.

When both, Ф and Ф exist, simultaneously, potential and stream functions are called conjugate harmonic functions. It can be easily shown that the curves Ф = const. are orthogonal to the curves Ф = const.