Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

ASSIGNMENT OF FLUID
MECHANICS
Presenting to: prof, Jinju Sun

MAY 30, 2015

ZUHAIR QUDOOS
ID# 3114999095, 3114999033
SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT & POWER ENGINEERING
XIAN JIAOTONG UNIVERSITY
Email: zuhair.qudoos@yahoo.com

Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

Part I
Question: #1
Classical fluid mechanics are based on continuum assumption. Please describe this concept
briefly, do we need to consider individual molecular behavior for the continuum fluid?
Answer:
All fabrics, solid or fluid, are composed of molecules discretely spread and in continuous
movement. Yet, in dealing with fluid-flow relations on a mathematical footing, it is necessary to
substitute the actual molecular structure by a hypothetical continuous medium, called the
continuum. The continuum assumption considers fluids are in continuous motion. As an outcome
of the continuum assumption its density, force per unit area, temperature and velocity are taken
to be well-defined at smallest point. The fact that fluids are made up of discrete molecules is
ignored. We do not need to worry about the behavior of individual atoms. The continuum
assumption is valid in treating the behavior of fluids under normal conditions. Thus, in case of
Continuum fluid we do not demand to look at the individual molecular behavior. Only the effect
of considering continuum fluid is a diminution in the accuracy of the result.

Question: #2
When do flow analysis, one can choose a control volume or system. What is your preference?
Please comment on your choice.
Answer:
A scheme is a defined as space with fixed quantities and matter within. The material or
imaginary surface called boundary separate the system from the surroundings. The bounds of the
system can be fixed or movable with no mass transfer across the scheme boundaries. A control
volume is random limited volume in a space, which is defined in space or running with constant
velocity through which the fluid runs. Control volume has an open boundary. As mass,
momentum and energy are allowed to cross across. Its boundary is called control surface. In case
of flow analysis, it is preferable to use Control Volume rather than System as both mass and
energy can cross the boundary of a control system. In case of flow of fluid it is difficult to focus

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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

our attention on a fixed identifiable quantity of mass as in the case of the system. It is more
convenient to analyze a volume in space through which the fluid flows
Question: # 3
Mercury Barometer is used measure the atmospheric pressure of Xian, and it is 76 0 mm high. If
we use water to measure such an atmospheric pressure, what is the height of the water column?
Answer:
We know that, Patm =gh we have Hg=13, 550 kg/3
from the table A.3 at 1 am and 20C g= 9.81 m/2
h=760mm = 0.76m
Patm= (13,550 kg/3) (9.81 m/s2)( 0.76m) =101.023pa

Now, comparing Standard atmospheric pressure (Patm) with Atmospheric pressure

of water ( =998 kg/3 from the table A.3 at 1 Patm and 20C) Patm=
101.023kpa = ( 998 kg/3)(9.81 m/2) =10.31m
Question: # 4

As shown in Figure 4, three containers are filled of water. The depths of the water are the same
and the bottom areas of three containers are also the same. Please compare the magnitudes of the
hydrostatic forces, F1, F2, and F3.

Answer:
We know that Pressure = Force / Area. Where pressure for all three containers is same as
pressure is given by P =gh+ Patm Density is same for all three containers as they all are
filled with water Gravity g=9. 81m/2 constant. Height h is same for all three containers.
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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

Patm is same as they are in same atmospheric condition. Since the Pressure and Area of all
three containers with filled with same fluid are same the hydrostatic forces F1, F2, and F3 for
all three containers are same

Question: #5
Figure 5 presents a picture of a tornado and it affects a large area. Please denote the most
destructive part of the tornado and also make your comments on it.
Answer:
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth
and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred
to as twisters or cyclones, Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but they are typically in the
form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled
by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour
(177 km/h), are about 250 feet (76 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before
dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour
(483 km/h).
The tornado which reaches the earth is most dangerous and destructive in nature. They rotate in
anticlockwise direction. For the study of Tornado we can consider the vortex ring. Warm air
powers up through the center of the tornado and continues up through the thunder cell, the
descending cold air moves toward the outside of the thunder cell and eventually wraps around
the rotating system,
The low pressure caused by high speed wind in Tornados can be best explained by Bernoullis
equation and Navier-Stokes equation. Which is mentioned below.
(i) Bernoullis equation

P+

and P= -

(ii) Navier-Stokes equation

P(r,)=-

+C

Whereas Euler equation also result the same result from inner reason of tornado's, i.e given us
P=

Air flow is from below increasing speed as it spirals up, air inflow speeds up its pressure drops.
So the most destructive area would be the area which comes under vortex ring.
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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

Question: #6
As shown in figure 6, the force diagrams of two corresponding points in large and small
reservoir flow are similar, please comment on whether the two flows are similar or not?
Answer:
Pictures of both small and large reservoir flow are same as both of them show resemblance, as
they are geometrically similar resulting complete dynamic similar, and all the important forces in
the flow are carefully measured.

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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

Part II

Choose one of the following topics and write a short essay

to describe
Question# 1

How Fluid Mechanics is used in modern weather forecast?

Answer:
Weather prediction started at the beginning of human civilization. The early weather predictions
were primarily founded on experience through long-term observations. Even so, they were
especially important in answering the demands of early human agricultural activities, which
were extremely dependent on the knowledge of changing temperature and precipitation cycles
throughout the year. A serious example is the 24 Solar Terms of the ancient Chinese Lunar
Calendar which gives rough estimations of climate conditions throughout the year.
As skill and technology developed, with the understanding of Newtons Law of Mechanics
and Fluid Dynamics, numerical weather prediction models became available for more
precise outcomes. Lewis Fry Richardson proposed the first numerical weather prediction
model in 1920s, and managed to take out an 8 hour wind and pressure prediction after 6
months of tedious hand calculations. The answers turned out to be very inaccurate;
however, his effort marked the commencement of the era for modern numerical weather
predictions.
In 1950s, as computer technology advances, numerical weather prediction started to get
off. The first successful weather prediction was borne out by Jule Charney and John von
Neumann. They utilized a simplified atmospheric dynamics model to perform a 24 hour
weather prediction, which took 24 hours to compute on the ENIAC computer system.
Subsequently, joint US Weather Bureau, Navy and Air Force numerical forecasting unit
were formed to provide operational numerical forecast on a daily base.

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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

In the following long time till today, numerical weather predictions have achieved
breakthrough improvements in many facets. More exact and complete atmospheric models are
gone through, vertical layers and finer grids are used, more accurate initial
Conditions are gathered through weather satellites, radars and
Weather balloons, and a good deal more powerful computer systems are practiced. Some
more familiar ones are thermometers which measure air temperature, anemometers which
gauge wind speeds, and barometers which provide information on aviation
Force per unit area. These instruments allow meteorologists to gather information about what is
happening near Earth's surface. Gathering information from other informants and other sections
of the atmosphere helps to make a more descriptive picture of the conditions. Today, modern
numerical weather prediction models are capable of getting up to 10 days of weather prediction
results of relative high accuracy.

Fluid Mechanics are used by advanced engineering science to read and fix the weather
predictions and information, so my report is on The Fluid Mechanics of Tropical Cyclones.
The scientific term Tropical Cyclone describes a single well-defined natural phenomenon,
which in the northwest Pacific is called a typhoon (literally, great wind ) while in the
northwest Atlantic it is cognized by the name hurricane (of Caribbean ancestry); the latter
figure being used as well in the NE Pacific, whereas the scientific expression Tropical Cyclone
(or, more simply, just cyclone) is preferred in tropical regions of the southwest Pacific and of
the Indian Ocean.
In meteorology, the word cyclone on its own is used to denote any center of low pressure
towards which, by the well-known Coriolis effect, surface winds spiral inwards cyclonically;
that is, anticlockwise in the Northern, but clockwise in the Southern, Hemisphere. In addition to
meeting this general requirement for a cyclone, however, the Tropical Cyclone proper possesses
an altogether special feature in satellite imagery.
This is the famous eye of the storm: a calm area of circular form which is often nearly free of
clouds, although it is hemmed in by a wall of extremely dense cloud (the eyewall ) where
wind velocities are as eminent as 50 m/s or more. The fierce one-eyed monster of Greek myth
was called Cyclops. Now a Tropical Cyclone, which its formidable threats to human life and
belongings, is undoubtedly fierce; it has moreover a single circular eye and, above all, its huge
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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

diameter of several hundreds of kilometers makes it really a monster among meteorological

phenomena. So three special features of a Tropical Cyclone that area, its immense size, its one
circular eye, its terrifying ferocity, are summed up in the alliterative phrase Cyclone as
Cyclops. The Figure denotes. Views from meteorological satellites of a Typhoon near the
Philippines, (b) a Hurricane near Cuba, (c) a Tropical Cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere.

It is always over a tropical ocean (Atlantic, Pacific, or Indian) that a Tropical Cyclone is formed,
only human beings experience its ferocity when it nears land. Then great destruction may result,
either from the direct violence of extreme winds on man-made structures, or else from coastal
inundation by a storm surge; as can occur when near shore water, acted on by such winds, piles
up against a coastline. The worst recorded storm surge, produced by a 1970 Tropical Cyclone in
the Bay of Bengal, caused 300,000 deaths in Bangladesh.
Even a city as far from the equator as 35 N, such as Kyoto, is by no means immune from the
menace of extreme Tropical Cyclone winds. For instance, on 29 September 1994,
Supertyphoon Orchid passed close to Kyoto (ESCAP=WMO, 1995) with some serious
damaging effects; especially to structures which, having been constructed before the first
appearance of modern construction codes for wind-hazard resistance, had not been adapted later
to take this into account. The route of a Tropical Cyclone (TC) commonly involves just as many
sudden changes of direction as were observed for Orchid. Consequently, any approach to TC
track prediction by a mere process of extrapolation of the path followed in the last 24 or 48
hours
(Meteorologists call this a persistence approach to forecasting) can achieve only relatively
poor reliability. Here is one of the reasons why fluid mechanics need to act as an important role
in TC forecasting all TCs is formed over oceanic regions (even though the hazards they
generate arise only later, when they approach land). Their survey, then, implies not simply fluid
mechanics, but specifically the mechanics of (at least) two interacting fluids: ocean and air.
1. Wet-Air Thermodynamics and a Disappearing Spiral
In every cyclone, of course, the surface winds spiral inward cyclonically; yet in TC, on the other
hand, this spiral motions inward component performs an extraordinary disappearing trick at
the eyewall: that circular wall of extremely dense cloud (of the type known to meteorologists as

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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

convective) which surrounds an eye often nearly free of cloud. In the eyewall, fast upward
motions are able to lift the air right up to the base of the stratosphere (situated at about 15 km
altitude), then spirals outward in a broadly anticyclone (although not usually very symmetrical)
motion. Therefore, the surface spiral disappears because fast upward motions lift surface air
to stratospheric heights. However, under average conditions, or simply cannot spring up like
this! This is because rising air, as its pressure drops, expands and therefore cools; actually by
1 C per 100 m through energy lost in the work of expansion. Today, in any stable atmosphere,
the surrounding air is not so cold; in other words, the atmospheres temperature drop with
altitude is less than 1 C per 100 m. The ascending air, and so, being colder than its
environment, necessarily falls back. The simple thermodynamics of air rising under
Ordinary circumstances yields such a determination from the easily derived equation
because the pressure p drops with height z at a rate page, equal to the weight of air per unit
volume, it follows that, during any height increase dues, for a gross gas in an adiabatic
change.

Here, the cap is the specific heat of air at constant pressure (about 1000 J=kg per 1 C), so that
heat input at constant pressure is

death; on the other hand, heat input at constant temperature

equals the work of expansion p dev., if specific volume V increases by DV, where by Boyles
law p dV= -V = -; and these two heat inputs must cancel under adiabatic conditions (of no
exchange of heat with the surroundings). Equation (1) gives the charge per unit of temperature
fall with height as:

= 1 C per 100 m. (2)

2. Wet-Air Thermodynamics
By contrast, any corresponding conclusions from wet-air thermodynamics are altogether
different. Wet air here means air that is 100% humidity; in other words, saturated with water
vapor. Today, whereas rising air that is what does still cool, nevertheless this cooling causes
some condensation of water vapor into rain drops; in which process latent heat is discharged,

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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

hence that the point of cooling is less. In wet-air thermodynamics the equation governing rising
air is converted to

Where the latent heat L means the excess energy per unit volume of water vapor over water in
concentrated phase, while q is the concentration (by volume) of water vapor. The all-important
fact, when wet air rises is that q continues to take its saturated value art, which is a steeply
increasing function of temperature; this, of course, is why cooling air experiences that reduction
in vapor concentration q which necessarily implies more or less condensation.
Very roughly indeed, the result of the added term L Dec, with q rising so steeply as a function
of T, is to double the coefficient of the date on the right-hand side of its simple value keep
occurring. For rising wet air, then, the resulting rate of temperature fall with altitude,
=

Takes up very roughly half the former value, becoming about C per 100 m. accordingly, if then
Surrounding fluids rate of temperature fall with height exceeds this (lying then, somewhere
between per 100 m and its maximum possible value of 1 C per 100 m for a stable
atmosphere), rising wet air will always remain warmer than its surroundings and thus can
continue to grow. Such a capability, nonetheless, exists only for wet air in the strict sense of
100% relative humidity; by contrast, the first equation is satisfied by air under ordinary
circumstances; that is, with relative humidity less than 100%.
It is necessary, then, to interpret a TCs eyewall as that location where the very long spiral path
pursued by winds directly over the surface of the sea has finally induced them to become
impregnated with water vapor (100% humidity). And so the resulting wet air is indeed able to
rise if, in the sense sketched above, the surrounding atmosphere is not too stable.
If a third equation is employed with the density given by the pure-gas law as p=RT while q
takes its saturated value as =0.

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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

Here, 062 is just the water=air molecular-weight ratio, while the vapor pressure pv (T) may be
diagrammed as a mapping of temperature in two alternative curves, representing partial pressure
of water vapor (i) over liquid water and (ii) over ice. In the lower division of the eyeball, of
course, we are concerned with vapor condensing into liquid water. Higher up, however, the
vapor condenses from one curve to the other takes place somewhere between 0 C and-10 C,
depending on the amount of super cooling of condensed water. The values of , the rate (4) of
temperature fall with height in wet air, were obtained from (3) and (5) by List (1951); and are
here plotted (Figure 5) against temperature for a scope of different presses, with both pv (T) and
L given their values for vapor over liquid water when T>0
C while values for vapor over ice are used when T<-10 C. Dotted lines indicate possible
transitions between the two lots of curves. Equations (3) and (5) also specify the ratio dp=dT as
a function of p and T in the contour of a differential equation which can be solved given a
boundary condition at (say) the basis of the eyewall. When typical base values of p= 950 MB
and T= 30 C are used to derive this answer, the corresponding values of areas shown by the
collapsed seam. (They are a little less than the very rough approximation per 100 m in the lower
region of the eyeball, and a little more in the upper part.) Breeze in the eyeball can rise when
rates of temperature fall in the surrounding atmosphere exceed these values. The partial
pressure pv (T) of water pa pour (i) over liquid water and (ii) over ice.
Solid curves show , the rate of temperature drop (4) with height for adiabatically rising wet air,
computed (List, 1951) as a function of temperature T in C and pressure p in millibar. Dotted
curves suggest possible transitions between values for vapor condensing (i) into liquid water
and (ii) into ice. The broken-line curve plots the values of in an eyewall where wet air is
assumed to rise adiabatically from a base at 30 C and 950 MB, while the dash-dotted line gives
corresponding values of the height z (again assuming a strictly adiabatic process).
The corresponding heights z at which the values would be found if wet air rose (as assumed)
in a strictly adiabatic process are readily derived from the bust-line values of by numerically
integrating (4) from a radical value of T=30C at z= 0. This derives the height z as the function
of T shown in the dash-dotted line. Real processes within the rising fluid of the eyeball include,
of course, some departures from strictly adiabatic wet-air behavior; the most important one
arising, perhaps, from mixing caused by entrainment of ambient fluid. Under these
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Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

circumstances the value of T reached at an ALT of 15 km typical of the substructure of the

stratosphere will not be nearly so far above a typical ambient temperature of -70 C as the value
derived (-35 C) on the premise of a strictly adiabatic process. Nonetheless the adiabatic curves
for wet air give an impressive reading of those lifting forces that power a TC.
3.1 The TC Viewed as a Heat Engine
Emanuel (1986, 1991) has pointed out how wet-air thermodynamics allows us to see the TC as
a heat engine where the working fluid is just that mix of dry air with water in all its phases
(vapor, droplets, ice crystals) which comes out in the aura. From this viewpoint all the heat
intakes occur over the ocean, and essentially consists of latent heat of evaporation transferred
during the long spiral path pursued by winds before they reach saturation. Somewhat unusually,
all this heat intake occurs at a practically constant temperature (that of the ocean surface). This
is because most of the cooling of air which could be anticipated to ensue from the supply of
latent heat is offset by the vigorous processes of radioactive and turbulent heat transfer which
take place at the interface between sea and air. Afterward that the heat engines nearly adiabatic
work-output phase is centered in the eyewall; while, in the end, the heat-loss phases takes place
at a nearly stratospheric temperature.
Basically, the heat-engine cycle so described is close to a Carnot cycle: one with heat-uptake
and heat loss phases occurring at different constant temperatures, and divided by an adiabatic
work-output stage. Hither, the great difference between the heat-intake temperatures T1and the
heat-loss temperature T0 suggests a real value for the thermal efficiency: that proportion of
the heat intake which appears in the output of mechanical work. Therefore, the classical
efficiency value

(With temperature in Kelvins) for an ideal Carnot cycle could take values of order one-third if
T1were about 300 K (a typical sea-surface temperature) and T0 about 200 K (a typical
stratospheric temperature). Whatever a realistic value for may be, that proportion the heat
intake at the ocean surface which generates mechanical energyabove all in the form of
extreme windsis required in a TC to balance all the frictional dissipation of energy in these
winds occurring near the ocean surface itself. Study of this important balance explains why the
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Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

TC is a tropical phenomenon: the heat intake per unit volume of air depends critically on the
concentration Qs (by volume) of water vapor under saturated conditions, which increases
steeply with temperature, while there is no such dependence on temperature in the dissipation
rate per unit volume.
3.2 Air and Ocean in Strong Interaction
At TCs energetics, then, depend critically upon extremely strong interactions between air and
ocean; extremely strong in the sensation that the interactions take place at extreme wind
velocities. They include the following:
(i)
That transfer of water vapor from ocean to atmosphere which is necessary to allow 100%
humidity to be achieved. So that air in the eyeball can rise to great heights; along with
(ii) Such high temperature transfer from sea to nearby air as is needed to maintain their
temperatures equal; thus far opposed by
(iii) A transport of momentum from air to ocean associated with its frictional resistance to
surface winds. Therefore, while in any TC the ocean gives energy to the air, nonetheless the
atmosphere in turn
gives back momentum to the oceanwith some potentially disastrous results of just two
main kinds, each whipped up by extreme surface winds. Along the deep ocean, these tend to
produce intense surface waves while in shallow water they may generate those powerful bulk
motions which are known as storm surges, and which can gravely threaten coastal populations.
3.3 Conditions for TC Formation and Intensification
Before that, nevertheless, those conditions under which such strong interactions have been
followed to produce TC formation and intensification must be counted.
(i)
Latitudes, whether north or south of the equator, must be at least 5 (for the Coriolis
effect to yield a cyclonic spiralling of surface winds);
(ii) Rates of temperature fall with height in surrounding air must exceed the value
appropriate to wet air rising adiabatically (for an ascent of air in the eyeball to be adequately
powered);
(iii) Temperatures T at the ocean surface must be at least 26 C (for the saturated water-vapor
concentration to provide sufficient latent-heat input to cyclonically spiralling winds);
(iv) Vertical shears, i.e., Gradients of wind with height in surrounding air, must be relatively
minor (for disruption of the TC flow structures axisymmetry and vertical coherence to be
avoided); (v) relative humidities in the middle troposphere must be sufficiently high (for
prevention of any possible drying out of the eyewall upflow by entrained air); and, in the end,
(vi) Some rather substantial amounts of cyclonic vorticity must previously be present at low
altitude in the western Pacific, a commonly observed phenomenon is the monsoon trough: a
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Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

long occupation of low pressure molded in the wake of a monsoon. At the eastern remainder of
a monsoon trough, a TC is often forged through the substantial interaction of local cyclonic
vorticity with the tropical sea.
Over the Atlantic, on the other hand, the weather forecasting of the Sahara acts to generate
waves with continually growing amplitude which steadily travels westward in the upper air.
And so, after sufficient amplification of the westward-travelling waves, a crest may break off
to form a cut-off low with strong cyclonic rotation, which may then penetrate down to the
ocean surface and ignite the Carnot engine.
4. Observing AirSea Interaction at Extreme Wind Speeds
In the meanwhile, this section has amply demonstrated how airsea interaction at extreme wind
speeds can exert many different influences on a TCs formation and growth, as well as on its
possible hazardous consequences; thus that great importance must be attached to direct notices
of the detailed nature of that interaction. It has above all been the gifted and courageous crews
of Russian research ships who have contributed such direct observations by deliberate
navigation through typhoons and those from ICSU who planned the Tropical Cyclone
Disasters Symposium (Beijing, 1992) were pleased to be able to get the attention of the worlds
meteorologists to these Russian achievements.
(a) A great deal of the vapor transfer to surface winds came from spray droplets, then
(b) Cooling from the corresponding latent heat transfer might not be fully cleared up by heat
transport from the ocean surface, so that
(c) Air temperature (as discovered) would get to an equilibrium value below that of the
ocean surface; and, in consequence,
(d) The mean temperature of saturated air around the foot of the eyeball would be less than
the sea surface temperature.
From the thermodynamic point of view, the importance of such a correction (d) to the heatintake temperature T1 lies, of course, not in the rather modest, resulting drop in the Carnot
efficiency, but in the much more significant decrease in the overall latent heat intake per unit
mass of air associated with the very steep dependence of saturated water-vapor concentration
Qs on the heat-intake temperature T1. Breaking waves generate spray in two ways: surface
bursting of bubbles of trapped air makes smaller droplets (radii up to 60m), while spume
formation at white caps makes larger droplets (radii over 40m). An addition in the fraction of
ocean surface covered with white caps is viewed as the principal influence of increasing wind
speed on spray formation; at wind speeds above the value (around 40 m/s) for which that
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Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

whitecap fraction approaches unity, spray formation may still proceed to increase in an
unknown manner and so they discourage application of their theory at greater wind speeds.
Very briefly, their predictions at 40 m/s are that the volume density of the spray should reach
only 0.008 kg=3 (less than 1% of the air density), and even so that vapor transfer from spray
to air should exceed direct transfer from the ocean surface by an order of magnitude Future
observations of airocean interaction at extreme wind speeds will depend increasingly on
satellite imagery. Already, a great quantity of information on sea-surface roughness, including
directional spectra of waves, is received from the earth resources satellite ERS-1 of the
European Space Agency by means of a C-band radar (at 5.3 GHz) which measures Bragg
backscatter from the rough sea surface. Such scatterometer data are concerned, not with
exceptional waves developed over a long fetch, but with the general statistical distribution of
wave roughness (as a function of distance and orientation) associated with local wines.
5.1 Fluid Mechanics and Tropical Cyclone Disasters
Tropical Cyclone disasters can of course rise quite soon after TC formation, when a small
oceanic island may stand the impact of TC winds. Far more frequently, however, major
disasters occur when a TC reaches a substantial land mass, where extreme winds may have
severe damage, either immediately by their action on man-made structures or indirectly through
storm-surge flooding; and where, in addition, river valleys can be massively flooded if the TCs
huge water capacity is released over their catchment areas.
Scientific works of all types of TC disaster and of their possible mitigation are founded
primarily on fluid mechanics. Moreover, many different aspects of the mechanics of what the
late A.E. Gill (1982) called the earths fluid envelope (atmosphere, ocean, rivers, lakes, and
groundwater) contribute to such surveys, in ways.
5.2 Fluid Mechanics and TC Formation
When and where a TC will come along. True, it can be argued that obstacles to forecasting TC
initiation present no huge embarrassment; after all, satellite pictures soon pinpoint a TC, and for
very many purposes a good prognosis of future campaigns, along with any intensity changes,
for a TC already observed by satellite may be rather sufficient. Most TC forecasters, on the
other hand, who also bring into account the above-noted dangers to oceanic islands, feel
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strongly committed to observe out for likely TC originators. These include, of course, those
monsoon troughs and westward-moving waves, moreover, a simple idea from fluid mechanics
potential vorticity has begun to prove useful in this setting. Potential vorticity for the
atmosphere was defined by Ertel (1942), and it works out that anomalously large cyclonic
values of potential vorticity can be viewed as having the potential to produce strong cyclonic
rotation; which, after gaining energy from airsea interaction may start a TC. From the fluidmechanics standpoint, potential vorticity may be translated as traces. The perpendicular part of
the atmospheres absolute vorticity may be written f+, where the Coriolis expression f=2sin
(7)
(With as latitude) gives the contribution from Earths rotation at angular velocity , while
represents the vertical vorticity component of the winds themselves (air motions relative to the
rotating Earth). If now he suffers for the vertical spacing between two nearby surfaces of
constant entropy Sthese are surfaces tending to act with the fluidthen the absolute vorticity
f+ tends to react to any vertical stretching of fluid elements by a variation in direct proportion
to h. This involves a trend for the quantity defined as potential vorticity, to remain constant for
each particle of fluid.

5.3 Fluid Mechanics of TC Tracks

In the universal context of TC disaster prediction on the other hand the main need is to forecast,
for a TC had already observed by satellite, its future track. This stands for the course pursued
by the eye of the tempest. An associated need, second only to the tracking requirement, may be
to forecast any changes in TC intensity. Admittedly, while a TC travels over a tropical ocean,
there lives an approximate symmetry between the energy increase from the Carnot cycle and
energy loss by rubbing at the open. However, this equilibrium can only be approximate;
accordingly, questions about intensity changes need to be put even over a tropical sea.
Furthermore, rates of energy gain (but not of loss) diminish over colder ocean areas, where the
TC therefore weakens while over land there remains no energy supply at all (and no physical
basis for the presence of an eyewall) so that the weakening is even more rapid. Notwithstanding
these considerations tend perhaps to strengthen the central need for track prediction, but
because the gravest threats of disaster may be centered just about where a TC first reaches land.
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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

The track which a TC follows is often extremely complicated, primarily, because it is

determined by the TCs interactions which the entire surrounding field of atmospheric motions.
Such far-ranging influences can be fully accepted into account only in a global numerical model
of those movements. However, a preliminary analysis of the methods of theoretical mechanics
may help both in understanding the outputs of numerical models and in proposing how a model
might be further amended. The fluid mechanics of TC tracks views them as influenced to a
similar extent both by the general ambient-flow pattern (including both first and second
horizontal derivatives of ambient flow velocities) and by the well-known beta effect. Here
stands for the northward gradient in the Coriolis parameter evidently,
Horizontal gradients in ambient values of the absolute vorticity f+ are fully fixed by this mix of
information.
6. from Forecasts to Effective Warnings
Of course any such reference to how an effective warning may be of vital importance for
disaster mitigation reminds us that two problems of closely comparable difficulty are faced by
forecasting experts:
(a)
To use sound science (including good fluid mechanics) to producing timely and reliable
forecasts of patterns of wind, wave, surge, flood; and
(b) On the foundation of such forecasts, to disseminate useful warnings that will
convincingly advise people under threat about actions needed for their shelter.
The all-important processes which link (a) to (b) represents a central section of the TC disaster
reduction and one that is taken particularly in earnest by the World Meteorological Organization.
7. Approaches in Global Weather Forecasting
For weather forecasting in general, the biggest improvements achieved during the past two
decades came above all from combining better fluid mechanics with better atmospheric physics
in a well-constructed numerical model of global atmospheric processes. Such a model for
numerical weather prediction (NWP), then, uses refined CFD methods in which the natural
philosophy of air/water mixtures, and also of radiative heat transfer, have been comprehensively
injected.
Here, before describing just one of the many good global NWP models that are in usable
employment, it may possibly be necessary to address a question on whether those big
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Fluid Mechanics Final Assessment & Report

Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

improvements actually resulted from meteorological satellites. Yet the answer to this question is
no, because satellites do nowcasting: they tell us about the weather at this moment, not
about the future. Improvements in forecasting, which is concerned, of course with water in the
future, have come almost entirely from NWP developments. Admittedly, initial conditions are
highly important for any CFD model, and four
NWP in particular. Every NWP model, indeed, gets down from initial data (comprehensively
smoothed in a sure sense to insure compatibility with the model) which are internationally
derived from the global atmosphere each day at 0000Z and 1200Z (midnight and noon at
longitude zero). Such information are received
(i) By weather stations over land from regularly released radiosonde balloons (telemetering
data from all altitudes); and also
(ii) From local weather radars; and, especially,
(iii) From geostationary, and polar-orbiting satellites; as easily as
(iv) From ships and (above all) aircraft;
(iv)These keen users of global forecasts being happy to feed valuable data alongside data from

(i) Into the WMOs massive World Weather Watch system.

One of todays many good NWP models is that employed by the UK Meteorological Office
(UKMO), both to give global advice to aircraft and shipping and other industries, and to issue
public forecasts and warnings. It is this model that, The UKMO model uses a CFD grid with 19
different in the vertical and with horizontal spacings of five-sixths degrees in latitude and fivefourths degrees in longitude. The numerical scheme is conservative and includes
parameterizations for
(a) Type of boundary layer (dependent on Richardson number),
(b) Radioactive characteristics of ground surfaces (as affected by soil type, vegetation, snow
depth, and so on),
(c) Radioactive characteristics of the air (as touched on by greenhouse gases),
(d) Both large-scale cloud cover and convective clouds,
(e) Airtopography interaction (with correct localization of level of loss of air momentum due
to gravity-wave drag), and of course
(f) Airocean interaction; as well as
(g) Horizontal and vertical eddy diffusion.
The model is run twice daily, with initial data derived at 0000Z and 1200Z, in each case
leading to global forecasts for regularly spaced instants up to 6 days in advance.

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Zuhair Qudoos: Student ID#3114999095, 3114999033

This, like the worlds many other excellent models, has achieved big measurable improvements
in prediction accuracy.

The End

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