The influence of vortices upon the resitance experienced by solids moving through a liquid

Abstract

(1) It is not so long ago that it was generally believed that the "classical" hydrodynamics, as dealing with perfect fluids, was, by reason of the very limitations implied in the term "perfect," incapable of explaining many of the observed facts of fluid motion. The paradox of d'Alembert, that a solid moving through a liquid with constant velocity experienced no resultant force, was in direct contradiction with the observed facts, and, among other things, made the lift on an aeroplane wing as difficult to explain as the drag. The work of Lanchester and Prandtl, however, showed that lift could be explained if there was "circulation" round the aerofoil. Of course, in a truly perfect fluid, this circulation could not be produced—it does need viscosity to originate it—but once produced, the lift follows from the theory appropriate to perfect fluids. It has thus been found possible to explain and calculate lift by means of the classical theory, viscosity only playing a significant part in the close neighbourhood ("grenzchicht") of the solid. It is proposed to show, in the present paper, how the presence of vortices in the fluid may cause a force to act on the solid, with a component in the line of motion, and so, at least partially, explain drag. It has long been realised that a body moving through a fluid sets up a train of eddies. The formation of these needs a supply of energy, ultimately dissipated by viscosity, which qualitatively explains the resistance experienced by the solid. It will be shown that the effect of these eddies is not confined to the moment of their birth, but that, so long as they exist, the resultant of the pressure on the solid does not vanish. This idea is not absolutely new; it appears in a recent paper by W. Müller. Müller uses some results due to M. Lagally, who calculates the resultant force on an immersed solid for a general fluid motion. The result, as far as it concerns vortices, contains their velocities relative to the solid. Despite this, the term — ½ ρq 2 only was used in the pressure equation, although the other term, ρ ∂Φ / ∂t , must exist on account of the motion. (There is, by Lagally's formulæ, no force without relative motion.) The analysis in the present paper was undertaken partly to supply this omission and partly to check the result of some work upon two-dimensional potential problems in general that it is hoped to publish shortly.