1. Basic Concepts of Fluid Flow 1.1 Introduction Fluids are substances whose molecular structure offers no resistance to exter nal shear forces: even the smallest force causes deformation of a fluid particle Although a significant distinction exists between liquids and gases, both types of fluids obey the same laws of motion. In most cases of interest, a fluid can be regarded as continuum, i-e. a continuous substance. Flipid flow is sed by the artion of externally applied forces. Common driving forces include pressure differences, gravity, shear, rotation, and sur face tension. They can be classified as surface forces(e.g. the shear force due to wind blowing above the ocean or profi ure and rhonr foreoe created by a movement of a rigid wall relative to the fluid) and body forces(e.g. gravity and forces induced by rotation). While all fluids behave siuuilarly under action of forces, their nacroscopic properties differ considerably. These properties must be known if one is to study fluid motion; the most important properties of simple fluids are the density and unscoszty. Others, such as Prandtl number, specific heat, and sur face tension affect fluid flows only under certain conditions, e.g. when there are large temperature differences. Fluid properties are functions of other ther- modynamic variables(e.g. temperature and pressure); although it is possible to estimate some of them from statistical mechanics or kinetic theory, they are usually obtained by laboratory measurement. Fluid mechanics is a very broad field. A small library of books would be required to cover all of the topics that could be included in it. In this book we shall he internsted mainly in flows nf interest to mechanical engineers hnt even that is a very broad area so we shall try to classify the types of problems that may be encountered. A more mathematical, but less complete, version of this scheme will be found in Sect. 1.8 The speed of a flow affects its properties in a number of ways. At low enough speeds, the inertia of the fluid may be ignored and we have creep iny Jlow. This regime is of importance in flows containing small particles suspensions), in flows through porous media or in narrow passages(coating techniques. micro-devices). As the speed is increased, inertia becomes im- portant but each nuld particie tollows a smooth trajectory: the llow us then said to be laminar. Further increases in speed may lead to instability that