Course description

Engineering is becoming increasingly international and competitive and customers are expecting products of high quality and reliability. Knowledge of Fluid Mechanics is critical for any engineer involved in the design of mechanical components. After completion of this module students will gain an understanding and expertise in the use of dimensional analysis, integral form of linear and angular momentum equations, calculation of complex fluid flow systems, flows around immersed bodies and free-surface flows.

In this course students will learn about the flow characteristics in pipe systems and their design (left), essential for the transport of fluids in chemical processes. It will be covered as well the fundamentals of the pumps needed to move such fluids around chemical plants (right, a multistage centrifugal pump).

Course Pre-Requisites: None

Course Learning Outcomes

1. Apply the basic principles of static and fluid systems on the systems.
2. Apply dimensional analysis and similarity solutions under problems of scaling and selection of equipment.
3. Solve basic fluid flow problems.
4. Determine flow rate, pressure drops and required pump characteristics for the typical system consisting of tanks, vessels, pipes, pumps and fitting elements.
5. Assess the impact of the fluid flow characteristics on the rate of mixing processes and chemical reactions.

Course Outline

In this course students will learn about: the properties of fluids; fluids statics; elementary fluids dynamics including the Bernoulli equation; differential analysis of flows, including the Navier-Stokes equation; flow of viscous fluids in pipes; flow over immersed bodies; the working of pump; the intricacies of mixing in chemical engineering problems; with a final analysis of the relevance and complexities of Non-Newtonian fluids in many processing industries.

This course will include computer labs using Comsol Multiphysics for students to learn the basics of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), an essential engineering tool to simulate complex flows.

CFD simulation using Comsol Multiphysics on the turbulent flow around a sphere.