Answer to Question #76924 in Mechanics | Relativity for Sami

Question

Shortly after a snowstorm with high winds, you notice several different snowdrifts outside ranging from those with short, gentle slopes to those with irregular, steep slopes.

a) Where would you look for evidence of laminar flow? Explain.
b) Where would you look for examples of turbulent flow? Explain

Answer 1

a) Laminar flow occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between the layers. Laminar flow tends to occur at lower velocities, below a threshold at which it becomes turbulent.
A common application of laminar flow is in the smooth flow of a viscous liquid through a tube or pipe. In that case, the velocity of flow varies from zero at the walls to a maximum along the cross-sectional centre of the vessel.
Another example is the flow of air over an aircraft wing. The boundary layer is a very thin sheet of air lying over the surface of the wing. Because air has viscosity, this layer of air tends to adhere to the wing. As the wing moves forward through the air, the boundary layer at first flows smoothly over the streamlined shape of the airfoil. Here, the flow is laminar and the boundary layer is a laminar layer.
b) Turbulent flow is any pattern of fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow regime, which occurs when the fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between those layers.
Turbulence is commonly observed in everyday phenomena such as surf, fast flowing rivers, billowing storm clouds, or smoke from a chimney, and most fluid flows occurring in nature and created in engineering applications are turbulent.