AA210A

Fundamentals of Compressible Flow

Course Introduction

Brian Cantwell
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Stanford University
9/9/20 1
 Course Reference Material

Required Text: Course Reader, Fundamentals of Compressible Flow.

These are my course notes and can be downloaded in pdf format from my web site.

Recommended reference: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion, Parabolic Press.

This book is filled with great flow pictures. I often use it to illustrate the concepts
developed in the course.

Also recommended

Liepmann and Roshko, Elements of Gasdynamics, Dover

Anderson, Modern Compressible Flow, McGraw Hill

Thompson, Compressible-Fluid Dynamics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Press

Shapiro, The Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Compressible Fluid Flow, Ronald Press.

Aris, Vectors, Tensors, and the Basic Equations of Fluid Mechanics, Prentice-Hall

Schlichting and Gersten, Boundary Layer Theory, Springer

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 Course Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Fluid Flow

Chapter 2 - Thermodynamics of Dilute Gases
Chapter 3 - Control Volumes, Vector Calculus
Chapter 4 - Kinematics of Fluid Motion
Chapter 5 - The Conservation Equations
Chapter 6 - Several Forms of the Equations of Motion
Chapter 7 - Entropy Generation and Transport
Chapter 8 - Viscous Flow Along a Wall
Chapter 9 - Quasi-One-Dimensional Flow
Chapter 10 - Gasdynamics of Nozzle Flow
Chapter 11 – Area Change, Wall Friction and Heat Transfer
Chapter 12 - Steady Waves in Compressible Flow
Chapter 13 - Unsteady Waves in Compressible Flow
Chapter 14 – Thin Airfoil Theory
Appendix 1 - Results from the Kinetic Theory of Gases
Appendix 2 - Equations of Motion in Cylindrical and Spherical Coordinates

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 Useful Web Sites - pictures and videos

This is my web site where the AA 210A notes can be found in pdf format
along with the course summary and homework assignments.

http://www.stanford.edu/~cantwell/

This Virginia Tech web site has a useful app for calculating the properties
of a one-dimensional compressible flow as well as several other apps.
http://www.engapplets.vt.edu

Lots of interesting flow pictures.

http://www.efluids.com/efluids/pages/gallery.htm

This MIT site has the Fluid Mechanics Films produced for the National
Science Foundation in the 1960’s available in streaming video. You need
Real Player to view the films. Highly recommended.

http://web.mit.edu/fluids/www/Shapiro/ncfmf.html

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 Useful Web Sites – Khan Academy short video lectures

One of the most interesting developments in recent years has been the creation of new, free websites dedicated to online
teaching. Perhaps the best of these is the amazingly extensive set of lectures put up by Sal Khan who lives in Los Altos just
south of Stanford. While there are really no lectures on the site directly connected to compressible flow, there are several on
calculus and thermodynamics that might be useful.

Links to a few suggested lectures are below. They typically run ten minutes or less. I am suggesting these as a means of review
if you feel you are rusty on these subjects. I would like to get your feedback as to whether you find the lectures useful. Feel free
to suggest others you might like.

Integrating Factors
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/integrating-factors-1?playlist=Differential%20Equations

Second Order differential Equations

http://www.khanacademy.org/video/2nd-order-linear-homogeneous-differential-equations-1?playlist=Differential%20Equations

Carnot Cycle
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/carnot-cycle-and-carnot-engine?playlist=Chemistry

Enthalpy
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/enthalpy?playlist=Chemistry

Thermodynamic Entropy Definition, Clarification

http://www.khanacademy.org/video/thermodynamic-entropy-definition-clarification?playlist=Chemistry

Recently these links were working but several others that I had listed before had stopped working. I
suspect the above links will also stop working eventually. To get the most out of the site you will
9/9/20 probably have to set up an account on the Khan Academy website. 5
 Grading/Homework Policies
Homework - Homework problems will be assigned each wednesday and will be due the following wednesday.
The understanding gained through solving problems is absolutely crucial to learning the course subject matter.
You are not expected to work on homeworks in total isolation; seek out your peers, the course assistants and the
instructor when you need help on the problems. This is a fundamental part of the learning experience. Just be
sure that whatever you hand in, is your own work. Homeworks that are turned in by 5:00 PM on the date due will
be carefully examined, graded and returned. There is a considerable effort required to grade the homeworks.
Please be considerate of the course assistants and make every effort to turn your homework in on time. Late
homeworks will not be graded. They will be assigned up to 3/5 credit depending on effort and returned without
examination.

Academic paper – Part of your final grade will be determined by your own creation in the form of a scholarly
paper on a topic related to compressible flow. The purpose of the paper is to give you an opportunity to do an in-
depth study on a topic of your choosing related to compressible flow. I will suggest a number of possible topics,
but I am very open to your suggestions. The paper must be new, original work but not necessarily a new
contribution to knowledge. The paper could be expository or educational in nature. It could be related to your
research but must be clearly independent of any other papers you might be preparing for a conference or journal
and any other paper you have written in the past unless that paper serves as a reference for a new effort. You
can see from the list of suggested topics below, that I expect the paper to include your perspective on the history
and background of your subject. The paper should be prepared using the template from the AIAA website for a
paper submitted to the SciTech conference and be of a quality that you would feel comfortable publishing as an
article in a journal or conference. Conferences often have sessions devoted to papers of the type you will be
producing. The length should be between 10 and 20 pages although you can consider those limits flexible. The
paper is due friday November 20 at 5:00 pm. As with the homework, a late paper will be assigned up to 3/5 credit
based on effort.

Grading: Homework - 70% ; Academic paper - 30%

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 Resources

e-Resources – If you need free access to journal articles through the Stanford system this link,
https://library.stanford.edu/using/connecting-e-resources, will help you set that up on your home computer.

Course material – Materials for all my courses are available at my website at https://web.stanford.edu/~cantwell/. The folder
Course Material for AA210A includes a folder containing a pdf of the course text, Fundamentals of Compressible Flow, a
folder where pdfs of the lectures will be posted a day or so before the lecture, and a folder where homework assignments will
be posted. In addition, selected papers related to the course material are also included in a resources folder. Videos of the
lectures will be placed on the AA210a site on CANVAS.

Some suggested topics for your article.

1) The development of high-speed flight, breaking the sound barrier

2) High speed commercial flight, the transition from piston to jet power
3) The issue of jet noise and its impact on commercial air travel
4) The development of CFD and the problem of computing transonic flow
5) The challenge of extended hypersonic flight
6) Turbulence modeling of compressible wall flows
7) Solving the re-entry heating problem
8) The challenge of landing on Mars and other planets
9) The history and current status of high-speed test facilities; transonic, supersonic, hypersonic tunnels, shock tunnels
10) Meteor and comet impacts, shock waves in liquids and solids
11) Compressibility effects in volcanos, geysers, stellar explosions and heavy element creation
12) Safety of gas, liquid and powder storage facilities, LNG safety, the Beirut explosion, grain elevator explosions

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 Compressible flows play a crucial role in a vast
variety of man-made and natural phenomena.

Propulsion and power systems

High speed flight

Star formation, evolution and death

Geysers and geothermal vents

Earth meteor and comet impacts

Gas processing and pipeline transfer

Sound creation and propagation

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 Let’s look at some examples of compressible flows.

I will often refer to the Mach number. This key parameter is defined as:

Flow Velocity
_____________
M=
Speed of Sound

Often compressible flows involve the formation of shock waves.

A shock wave is a very thin region of the flow where flow properties
change very rapidly.

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 Transonic Projectile (1 of 5)

M = 0.840

Note the formation of

weak shock waves on M = 0.885
the projectile

As the Mach number

increases, the shocks
become stronger and M = 0.900
extend farther from the
projectile.

9/9/20 Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion 10

 Transonic Projectile (2 of 5)

M = 0.946

M = 0.971

9/9/20 Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion 11

 Transonic Projectile (3 of 5)

M = 0.978

9/9/20 Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion 12

 Transonic Projectile (4 of 5)

M = 0.990

9/9/20 Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion 13

 Transonic Projectile (5 of 5)

M = 1.015

Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion

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 Shock Waves About Transonic Aircraft Visualized by Condensation.

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 Shock Waves on the World’s Fastest “Automobile”

Black Rock
Desert, Nevada,
October 15, 1997

763 miles per hour

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 Artillery fire - USS Iowa

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 Papua New Guinea Volcano Eruption 2014

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 Sphere in High Speed Flow

Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion

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 Supersonic Nozzle Flow (1 of 2)

Picture ref: Van Dyke, An Album of Fluid Motion

Space Shuttle Main Engine

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 Supersonic Nozzle Flow (2 of 2)

Hybrid Rocket Motor Test at NASA Ames

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 2-D Supersonic Nozzles:
The US Air Force’s new fighter the F-22

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 A weakly compressible example:
flow over a wing flap.

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 Sound Waves on the Sun

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 The Cat’s Eye Nebula produced by a dying star

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 Supersonic projectile in water 1220 m/sec

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 Questions?

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