Machine Mechanics

Properties of Fluids
Introduction In physics, a fluid is a substance that continually deforms under an applied shear stress. Fluids are a subset of the phases of matter and include liquids, gases, plasmas and, to some extent, plastic solids. Although the term "fluid" includes both the liquid and gas phases, in common usage, "fluid" is often used as a synonym for "liquid", with no implication that gas could also be present. For example, "brake fluid" is hydraulic oil and will not perform its required function if there is gas in it. This colloquial usage of the term is also common in medicine and in nutrition. Property is usually is any characteristics of a fluid i.e. pressure, temperature, volume. Intensive properties: Properties that are independent of the mass of a system e.g temperature, pressure, density. Extensive properties: Properties whose values depend on size-or-extent-of the system e.g mass, total volume, total momentum. Concept of Fluid The number of molecules involved is immense, and the separation between them is normally negligible by comparison with the distances involved in the practical situation being studied Although the properties of a fluid arise from its molecular structure,engineering problem are usually concerned with the bulk behavior of fluids Under these conditions, it is usual to consider a fluid as a continuum -a hypothetical continuous substance and the conditions at a point as the average of a very large number of molecules surrounding that point within a distance which is large compared with the mean intermolecular distance

Properties of Fluids
Density The mass density or density of a material is its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is (the lower case Greek letter rho). Mathematically, density is defined as mass

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Machine Mechanics divided by volume:

where is the density, m is the mass, and V is the volume. In some cases (for instance, in the United States oil and gas industry), density is also defined as its weight per unit volume,although this quantity is more properly called specific weight. Different materials usually have different densities, so density is an important concept regarding buoyancy, purity and packaging. Osmium and iridium are the densest known elements at standard conditions for temperature and pressure but not the densest materials. Specific gravity Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density (mass of the same unit volume) of a reference substance. Apparent specific gravity is the ratio of the weight of a volume of the substance to the weight of an equal volume of the reference substance. The reference substance is nearly always water for liquids or air for gases. Temperature and pressure must be specified for both the sample and the reference. Pressure is nearly always 1 atm equal to 101.325 kPa.

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Machine Mechanics Temperatures for both sample and reference vary from industry to industry. In British brewing practice the specific gravity as specified above is multiplied by 1000. Specific gravity is commonly used in industry as a simple means of obtaining information about the concentration of solutions of various materials such as brines, hydrocarbons, sugar solutions (syrups, juices, honeys, brewers wort, must etc.) and acids. Specific Weight The specific weight (also known as the unit weight) is the weight per unit volume of a material. The symbol of specific weight is (the Greek letter Gamma). A commonly used value is the specific weight of water on Earth at 5C which is 62.43 lbf/ft3 or 9.807 kN/m3. Vapour pressure Vapor pressure or equilibrium vapor pressure is the pressure exerted by a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases (solid or liquid) at a given temperature in a closed system. The equilibrium vapor pressure is an indication of a liquid's evaporation rate. It relates to the tendency of particles to escape from the liquid (or a solid). A substance with a high vapor pressure at normal temperatures is often referred to as volatile. The vapor pressure of any substance increases non-linearly with temperature according to the ClausiusClapeyron relation. The atmospheric pressure boiling point of a liquid (also known as the normal boiling point) is the temperature at which the vapor pressure equals the ambient atmospheric pressure. With any incremental increase in that temperature, the vapor pressure becomes sufficient to overcome atmospheric pressure and lift the liquid to form vapor bubbles inside the bulk of the substance. Bubble formation deeper in the liquid requires a higher pressure, and therefore higher temperature, because the fluid pressure increases above the atmospheric pressure as the depth increases. Heat capacity Heat capacity (usually denoted by a capital C, often with subscripts), or thermal capacity, is the measurable physical quantity that shows the amount of heat required to change the temperature of a substance by a given amount. In the International System of Units (SI), heat capacity is expressed in units of joule(s) (J) per kelvin (K). Derived quantities that specify heat capacity as an intensive property, i.e., independent of the size of a sample, are the molar heat capacity, which is the heat capacity per mole of a pure substance, and the specific heat capacity, often simply called specific heat, which is the heat capacity per unit mass of a material. Occasionally, in engineering contexts, a volumetric heat capacity is used. Because heat capacities of materials tend to mirror the number of atoms or particles they contain,

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Machine Mechanics when intensive heat capacities of various substances are expressed directly or indirectly per particle number, they tend to vary within a much more narrow range.

Co-efficient of Compressibility Coefficient of compressibility (also called the bulk modulus of compressibility or bulk modulus of elasticity) for fluids as

Large , a large change in pressure is needed to cause a small fractional change in volume (incompressible e.g liquids). Coefficient of compressibility of an ideal gas is equal to its absolute pressure and it increases with increasing pressure Substituting = P into definition of the coefficient of compressibility and rearranging gives

Isothermal Compressibility Isothermal compressibility is the inverse of the coefficient of compressibility

Isothermal compressibility of fluid represents the fractional change in volume or density corresponding to a unit change in pressure Viscosity Viscosity is a property that represents the internal resistance of a fluid to motion or the fluidity Consider a fluid layer between two very large parallel plates separated by distance.

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Machine Mechanics A constant parallel force F is applied to the upper plate, the lower plate is held fixed The upper plate moves continuously at constant velocity under the influence of F

The shear stress acting on the fluid layer is

Where, A=contact area between the plate and the fluid. Surface Tension Surface tension is a contractive tendency of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force. It is revealed, for example, in the floating of some objects on the surface of water, even though they are denser than water, and in the ability of some insects (e.g. water striders) to run on the water surface. This property is caused by cohesion of similar molecules, and is responsible for many of the behaviors of liquids. The magnitude of the force per unit length is called surface tension, s(N/m).

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