IV. On the dynamical theory of incompressible viscous fluids and the determination of the criterion

Abstract

1. The equations of motion of viscous fluid (obtained by grafting on certain terms to the abstract equations of the Eulerian form so as to adapt these equations to the case of fluids subject to stresses depending in some hypothetical manner on the rates of distortion, which equations Navier seems to have first introduced in 1822, and which were much studied by Cauchy and Poisson) were finally shown by St. Venant and Sir Gabriel Stokes, in 1845, to involve no other assumption than that the stresses, other than that of pressure uniform in all directions, are linear functions of the rates of distortion, with a co-efficient depending on the physical state of the fluid. By obtaining a singular solution of these equations as applied to the case of pendulums in steady periodic motion, Sir G. Stokes was able to compare the theoretical results with the numerous experiments that had been recorded, with the result that the theoretical calculations agreed so closely with the experimental determinations as seemingly to prove the truth of the assumption involved. This was also the result of comparing the flow of water through uniform tubes with the flow calculated from a singular solution of the equations so long as the tubes were small and the velocities slow. On the other hand, these results, both theoretical and practical, were directly at variance with common experience as to the resistance encountered by larger bodies moving with higher velocities through water, or by water moving with greater velocities through larger tubes. This discrepancy Sir G. Stokes considered as probably resulting from eddies which rendered the actual motion other than that to which the singular solution referred and not as disproving the assumption.