A conservation-of-velocity law for inviscid fluids
Abstract
The Euler equations for an inviscid barotropic fluid (rho = rho)(p) lead to a conversation law for the tangential component of surface velocity. The conservation law has been invoked in an approximate way in the past without having been explicitly stated. Here we derive the general form of the conservation law and, for irrotational flows, point out its relation to Bernouli's law. We then illustrate its use in a nonlinear surface wave model and compare results with experimental profiles for solitary waves in converging/diverging channels. The Korteweg-deVries theory originally used to interpret the experiment does not account for some features seen in the data, such as an oscillatory tail produced when a solitary wave moves through a diverging channel. By contrast, results given here, which derive from a model that explicitly conserves mass and velocity, faithfully reproduce the prominent features of the experiment.
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- March 1982
- Bibcode:
- 1982STIN...8320056W
- Keywords:
-
- Atmospheric Pressure;
- Conservation Laws;
- Differential Equations;
- Fluids;
- Inviscid Flow;
- Boussinesq Approximation;
- Fluid Flow;
- Nonlinear Systems;
- Surface Waves;
- Velocity Measurement;
- Water Waves;
- Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer