Friday, October 7, 2011

Reynold's Number

Today, I became mindful of just how important the Reynold's number is to fluid mechanics. The Reynold's number is a dimensionless number that is a ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces. It describes the  relationship between density, velocity, length and viscosity (Re = rho,v,L/mu). I was trying to think of a phenomena that I could write a dimensionless number for and every situation that I could think of, or came into contact with, I found that I could use the Reynold's number. For example, the flow of blood through the human heart, air flow over an F1 racing car, etc.

No comments:

Post a Comment