Comment

In this section, we have applied the momentum principle (Newton’s second law) to large, fixed control volumes in flows. On one hand, we demonstrated that, by know­ing the detailed flow properties along the control surface, this application led to an accurate result for an overall quantity such as drag on a body, namely, Equation (2.83) for a compressible flow and Equation (2.84) for an incompressible flow. On the other hand, in Example 2.2, we have shown that, by knowing an overall quantity such as the net drag on a flat plate, the finite control volume concept by itself does not necessarily provide an accurate calculation of detailed flow-field properties along the control sur­face (in this case, the velocity profile), although the momentum principle is certainly satisfied in the aggregate. Example 2.2 is designed specifically to demonstrate this fact. The weakness here is the need to assume some form for the variation of flow properties over the control surface; in Example 2.2, the assumption of the particular power-law profile proved to be unsatisfactory.