Alexandria University 2nd Year - Semester (1)

Faculty of Engineering Academic Year 2010/2011

Dept. of Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering

Fluid Mechanics (MR 231)

Lecture Notes (3)
Continued

Density, Specific Weight and Specific Gravity

Density is defined as mass per unit volume. That is:

ρ=m/V (Kg/m3) (1)

The density of a substance, in general, depends on temperature and pressure. The density
of most gases is proportional to pressure and inversely proportional to temperature.
Liquids and solids, on the other hand, are essentially incompressible substances, and the
variation of their density with pressure is usually negligible.

Example: At 20oC, the density of water changes from 998 kg/m3 at 1 atm. to 1003 kg/m3
at 100 atm., a change of just 0.5%.

The density of liquids and solids depends more strongly on temperature than it does on
pressure.

Example: At 1 atm., the density of water changes from 998 kg/m3 at 20oC to 975 kg/m3
at 75oC, a change of just 2.3%, which can still be neglected in many engineering analysis.

Specific gravity or relative density is defined as the ratio of the density of a substance to
the density of some standard substance at a specified temperature (usually fresh water at
4oC which is, ρw = 1000 kg/m3).

SG = ρ / ρw (2)

The Specific weight of a substance is defined as its weight per unit volume. That is:

γs = ρ g = W / V (N/m3) (3)

where, g is the gravitational acceleration ≈ 9.81 m/s2.

Density of Ideal Gases

An ideal gas is a hypothetical substance. It has been experimentally observed that ideal-
gas relation closely approximates the P-v-T bahaviour of real gases at low densities. At
low pressures and high temperatures, the density of a gas decreases and the gas behaves
like an ideal gas. In the range of practical interest, many familiar gases such as air,
nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, helium, argon, neon, and krypton and even heavier gases
such as carbon dioxide can be treated as ideal gases with negligible error (often less than
1%). On the other hand, dense gases such as water vapour in steam power plants and
refrigerant vapor in refrigerators should not be treated as ideal gases.

An equation of state is any equation that relates the pressure, temperature and density of
a substance. The equation of state for ideal or perfect gases is given in the form:

P v = RT or P = ρRT (4)

Where, P is the absolute pressure, v is the specific volume, T is the absolute temperature,
ρ is the density and R is the gas constant. The gas constant R is different for each gas and
is determined from R = Ru /M, where Ru is the universal gas constant whose value is Ru =
8.314 kJ/kmol.K and M is the molar mass (also called molecular weight) of the gas
(kg/kmol).

For a fixed mass m, the properties of an ideal gas at two different states can be related to
one another as:

P1 V1 /T1 = P2 V2/T2 (5)

Vapour Pressure and Cavitation

Temperature and pressure are dependant properties for pure substances during phase-
change processes. At a given pressure, the temperature at which a pure substance changes
phase is called the saturation temperature Tsat. Likewise, at a given temperature, the
pressure at which a pure substance changes phase is called the saturation pressure Psat.

Example: At an absolute pressure of 1 standard atmosphere (1 atm. or 101.325 kPa), the

saturation temperature of water is 100oC and, at a temperature of 100oC, the saturation
pressure of water is 1 atm.

The vapour pressure Pv of a pure substance is defined as the pressure exerted by its
vapour in phase equilibrium with its liquid at a given temperature. Pv is a property of
the pure substance and turns out to be identical to the saturation pressure Psat of the
liquid.

Example: The vapour pressure of water at 20oC is 2.34 kPa. A bucket of water at 20oC
left in a room with dry air at 1 atm. will continue evaporating until one of two things
happens: the water evaporates away (there is not enough water to establish phase
equilibrium in the room), or the evaporation stops when the partial pressure of the water
vapour in the rises to 2.34 kPa at which point phase equilibrium is established.

Vapour pressure increases with temperature. A substance at higher pressure boils at a

higher temperature. For instance, water boils at 134oC in a pressure cooker operating at 3
atm. absolute pressure, but boils at 93oC in an ordinary pan at a 2000 m elevation where,
the atmospheric pressure is 0.8 atm.

The reason for our interest in vapour pressure is the possibility of the liquid pressure in
liquid-flow systems dropping below the vapour pressure at some locations, and the
resulting unplanned vapourization.

Example: Water at 10oC will vapourize and form bubbles at certain locations (such as
the tip regions of propellers or suction side of pumps) where the pressure drops below
1.23 kPa. The vapour bubbles collapse as they are swept away from the low pressure
regions, generating highly destructive, extremely high pressure waves.

This phenomenon -which is a common cause for drop in performance and even the
erosion of propeller blades, is called cavitation, and it is an important consideration in
the design process. Cavitation must be avoided (or at least minimized) in flow systems
since it reduces performance, generates vibrations and noise, and causes damage to
equipment.

Fig. (14) Flow generated by the tips of a propeller’s blades

Fig. (15) Cavitation damage on a 16-mm by 25-mm aluminum sample tested at 60 m/s for 2.5 hrs
Energy and Specific Heats

The total energy E (or e per unit mass) of a system is comprised of numerous forms:
thermal, mechanical, kinetic potential, electrical, magnetic, chemical, etc…. The forms of
energy related to the molecular structure of a system and the degree of the molecular
activity are referred to as the microscopic energy. The sum of all microscopic forms of
energy is called the internal energy of a system, and is denoted by U (or u per unit
mass).

The macroscopic energy of a system is related to motion and the influence of some
external effects such as gravity. The energy that a system possesses as a result of its
motion relative to some reference frame is called kinetic energy. The kinetic energy (per
unit mass) is expressed as ke = V2/2 where V denotes the velocity of the system. The
energy that a system possesses as a result of its elevation in a gravitational field is called
potential energy and is expressed (per unit mass) as pe = gz where g is the gravitational
acceleration and z is the elevation of the centre of gravity relative to a selected referenced
frame.

The international unit of energy is the Joule (J) or kiloJoule. Another well known unit of
energy is the calorie (1 calorie = 4.1868 J) and is defined as the energy needed to raise
the temperature of 1 g of water at 14.5oC by 1oC.

In the analysis of systems that involve fluid flow, we frequently encounter the
combination of properties u and P v. This combination is called enthalpy h.

h = u + P v = u + P/ρ (6)

where P/ρ is the flow energy, also called the flow work, which is the energy per unit
mass needed to move the fluid and maintain flow.

The total energy of a flowing fluid (per unit mass) can be given as:

e flowing = h + ke + pe (kJ/kg) (7)

Coefficient of Compressibility

The volume (or density) of a fluid changes with a change in its temperature or pressure.
Fluids expand as they are heated or depressurized and contract as they are cooled or
pressurized. The amount of volume change is different for different fluids and properties
need to be defined that relate volume changes to the changes in pressure and temperature.
Two such properties are the bulk modulus of elasticity κ (also known as the coefficient
of compressibility or the bulk modulus of compressibility) and the coefficient of
volume expansion β.
The bulk modulus of elasticity is analogous to Young’s modulus of elasticity in solids
and can be defined as:

κ = - v (∂P /∂v) T = ρ (∂P /∂ρ) T (Pa) (8)

Where, v is the specific volume. Note that, the bulk modulus of elasticity takes the units
of pressure and represents the change in pressure corresponding to a fractional change in
volume or density of the fluid while the temperature remains constant. The coefficient of
compressibility of a truly incompressible substance is infinity. A large value of κ
indicates that a large change in pressure is needed to cause a small fractional change in
volume and thus, a fluid with a large κ is essentially incompressible. This is typical of
liquids.

Example: The pressure of water at normal atmospheric conditions must be raised to 210
atm. to compress it by 1%, corresponding to a coefficient of compressibility value of κ =
21, 000 atm.

The inverse of the coefficient of compressibility is called the isothermal compressibility

α and is expressed as:

α = 1/κ = - 1/v (∂v /∂P) T = 1/ρ (∂ρ /∂P) T (1/Pa) (9)

The isothermal compressibility of a fluid represents the fractional change in volume or

density corresponding to a unit change in pressure.