NPTEL Syllabus

Advanced Fluid Mechanics Video course

COURSE OUTLINE
"Fluid Mechanics" is a vast area and touches many aspects in
our day today lives. At the academic level, only fraction of this
course is covered. In undergraduate level of the courses,
students get familiar with fundamental aspects, governing
equations of fluid flow and their application to simple flow
problems.
Extending the depth of knowledge further, the course
"Advanced Fluid Mechanics" has been designed and framed
both in the form of "Web/Video" to express the concepts in a
well-defined and vivid manner.

NPTEL
http://nptel.iitm.ac.in

Mechanical
Engineering

The topics have been chosen from the broad areas of "Fluid Pre-requisites:
Mechanics" emphasizing mathematical formulation of various
flow problems. Attempt has been made to include advanced
theories so that students can expertise and pursue research in "Basic Fluid Mechanics"
course at undergraduate level.
the relevant areas.
In addition, this course also includes the fundamental concepts
of "Computational Fluid Mechanics" that will help in undertaking
the projects at undergraduate/post graduate level. The
advanced course material on this subject matter will be very
useful to undergraduate/post-graduate/research students,
teachers and practitioners.
Contents: Basic Concepts and Fundamentals, Governing
Equations of Fluid Motion, Exact Solutions of Navier-Stokes
Equation, Potential Flows, Laminar Boundary Layers, Element
of Stability Theory, Turbulent Flows, Compressible Flows,
Introduction to CFD.

COURSE DETAIL
Module

Topic

Hours

1. Basic
Concepts and
Fundamentals

Definition and properties of Fluids,

Fluid as continuum, Langragian
and Eulerian description, Velocity
and stress field, Fluid statics, Fluid

Coordinators:
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan
Mechanical EngineeringIIT
Guwahati
Dr. K. Arul Prakash
Department of Applied
MechanicsIIT Madras
Dr. N. Sahoo
Department of Mechanical
EngineeringIIT Guwahati

Kinematics.

2. Governing
Equations of
Fluid Motion

Reynolds transport theorem,

Integral and differential forms of
governing equations: mass,
momentum and energy
conservation equations, NavierStokes equations, Eulers
equation, Bernoullis Equation.

3. Exact
solutions of
Navier-Stokes
Equations

Couette flows, Poiseuille flows,

Fully developed flows in noncircular cross-sections, Unsteady
flows, Creeping flows.

4. Potential
Flows

Revisit of fluid kinematics, Stream

and Velocity potential function,
Circulation, Irrotational vortex, Basic
plane potential flows: Uniform
stream; Source and Sink; Vortex
flow, Doublet, Superposition of
basic plane potential flows, Flow
past a circular cylinder, Magnus
effect; Kutta-Joukowski lift theorem;
Concept of lift and drag.

5. Laminar
Boundary
Layers

Boundary layer equations,

Boundary layer thickness,
Boundary layer on a flat plate,
similarity solutions, Integral form of
boundary layer equations,
Approximate Methods, Flow
separation, Entry flow into a duct.

6. Elements of Concept of small-disturbance

Stability Theory stability, Orr-Sommerfeld equation,
Inviscid stability theory, Boundary
layer stability, Thermal instability,
Transition to turbulence.

7. Turbulent
Flow

Introduction, Fluctuations and timeaveraging, General equations of

turbulent flow, Turbulent boundary
layer equation, Flat plate turbulent
boundary layer, Turbulent pipe flow,
Prandtl mixing hypothesis,
Turbulence modeling, Free
turbulent flows.

8.
Compressible
Flows

Speed of sound and Mach

number, Basic equations for one
dimensional flows, Isentropic
relations, Normal-shock wave,
Rankine-Hugoniot relations, Fanno
and Rayleigh curve, Mach waves,
Oblique shock wave, PrandtlMeyer expansion waves, Quasione dimensional flows,
Compressible viscous flows,
Compressible boundary layers.

9. Introduction
to
Computational
Fluid Dynamics
(CFD)

Boundary conditions, Basic

discretization Finite difference
method, Finite volume method and
Finite element method.

References:
1. Batchelor G.K, An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics,
Cambridge University Press, 1983.
2. Fox W. Robert, McDonald T. Alan, Introduction to Fluid
Mechanics, Fourth Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1995.
3. Frank M. White, Fluid Mechanics, Tata McGraw-Hill,
Singapore, Sixth Edition, 2008.
4. Frank M. White, Viscous Fluid Flow, Third Edition,
McGraw-Hill Series of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.
5. John D. Anderson Jr, Modern Compressible Flow with
Historical Perspective, McGraw-Hill, 1990.
6. John D. Anderson Jr., Fundamentals of Aerodynamics,
McGrawHill, 2005.
7. John D. Anderson Jr., Computational Fluid Dynamics: The
Basics with Applications, McGraw-Hill Series of
Mechanical Engineering, 1995.
8. Milton Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion, The Parabolic
press, Stanford University, 1982
9. Muralidhar K. and Biswas G., Advanced Engineering Fluid
Mechanics, Second Edition, Narosa, 2005.
10. Panton R.L., Incompressible Flow, John Wiley and Sons,
2005.
11. Pijush K. Kundu and Ira M. Cohen, Fluid Mechanics,
Fourth Edition, Academic Press (ELSEVIER), 2008.

12. Schlichting H., Boundary Layer Theory, Springer Verlag,

2000.
13. Tennekes H. and Lumley J.L., A First Course in
Turbulence, The MIT press, 1972.
A joint venture by IISc and IITs, funded by MHRD, Govt of India

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in