Material derivativeIn continuum mechanics, the material derivative describes the time rate of change of some physical quantity (like heat or momentum) of a material element that is subjected to a space-and-time-dependent macroscopic velocity field. The material derivative can serve as a link between Eulerian and Lagrangian descriptions of continuum deformation. For example, in fluid dynamics, the velocity field is the flow velocity, and the quantity of interest might be the temperature of the fluid.
Circulation (physics)In physics, circulation is the line integral of a vector field around a closed curve. In fluid dynamics, the field is the fluid velocity field. In electrodynamics, it can be the electric or the magnetic field. Circulation was first used independently by Frederick Lanchester, Martin Kutta and Nikolay Zhukovsky. It is usually denoted Γ (Greek uppercase gamma). If V is a vector field and dl is a vector representing the differential length of a small element of a defined curve, the contribution of that differential length to circulation is dΓ: Here, θ is the angle between the vectors V and dl.
Incompressible flowIn fluid mechanics or more generally continuum mechanics, incompressible flow (isochoric flow) refers to a flow in which the material density is constant within a fluid parcel—an infinitesimal volume that moves with the flow velocity. An equivalent statement that implies incompressibility is that the divergence of the flow velocity is zero (see the derivation below, which illustrates why these conditions are equivalent). Incompressible flow does not imply that the fluid itself is incompressible.
Stream functionThe stream function is defined for incompressible (divergence-free) flows in two dimensions – as well as in three dimensions with axisymmetry. The flow velocity components can be expressed as the derivatives of the scalar stream function. The stream function can be used to plot streamlines, which represent the trajectories of particles in a steady flow. The two-dimensional Lagrange stream function was introduced by Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1781. The Stokes stream function is for axisymmetrical three-dimensional flow, and is named after George Gabriel Stokes.
Solenoidal vector fieldIn vector calculus a solenoidal vector field (also known as an incompressible vector field, a divergence-free vector field, or a transverse vector field) is a vector field v with divergence zero at all points in the field: A common way of expressing this property is to say that the field has no sources or sinks. The divergence theorem gives an equivalent integral definition of a solenoidal field; namely that for any closed surface, the net total flux through the surface must be zero: where is the outward normal to each surface element.
