3. Fluid Dynamics

The term fluids encompasses both liquids and gases, where Fluid Dynamics is an area of physics and engineering that describes the flow of such fluids. A subsection of the study of transport phenomenaA field of engineering that studies mass, energy, and momentum within and between systems, fluid dynamics considers the transport of momentum. It is intrinsically linked to the study of heat and mass transfer, due to the relevance of all three topics in engineering design.

Chemical Engineers are frequently concerned with pipe flowsdescription of the flow of a fluid within a pipe., which fluid dynamics play a major role. This becomes increasingly complex when the topic of non-Newtonian fluidA fluid that does not obey Newton’s Law of Viscosity, where viscosity may be a function of another value. mechanics arises, where the behaviour of a fluid cannot be simply solved with a linear relationship.

This module will introduce the basics of fluid dynamics, expanding the concepts into transport phenomena and the laws of conservation, concluding with how pipe flow can be analysed through the use of equations.