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The Reynolds number is the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces within a fluid that is subjected to relative internal movement due to different fluid velocities. A region where these forces change behavior is known as a boundary layer, such as the bounding surface in the interior of a pipe.
Dimensionless numbers (or characteristic numbers) have an important role in analyzing the behavior of fluids and their flow as well as in other transport phenomena. [1] They include the Reynolds and the Mach numbers, which describe as ratios the relative magnitude of fluid and physical system characteristics, such as density, viscosity, speed of sound, and flow speed.
The Reynolds and Womersley Numbers are also used to calculate the thicknesses of the boundary layers that can form from the fluid flow’s viscous effects. The Reynolds number is used to calculate the convective inertial boundary layer thickness that can form, and the Womersley number is used to calculate the transient inertial boundary thickness that can form.
The Strouhal number depends on the Reynolds number, [5] but a value of 0.22 is commonly used. [6] As the unit is dimensionless, any set of units can be used for the variables. Over four orders of magnitude in Reynolds number, from 10 2 to 10 5 , the Strouhal number varies only between 0.18 and 0.22.
A vortex street around a cylinder. This can occur around cylinders and spheres, for any fluid, cylinder size and fluid speed, provided that the flow has a Reynolds number in the range ~40 to ~1000. [1] In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid is in a turbulent flow regime. [2]
A reasonable assessment of whether the boundary layer will be laminar or turbulent can be made by calculating the Reynolds number of the local flow conditions. Separation occurs in flow that is slowing down, with pressure increasing, after passing the thickest part of a streamline body or passing through a widening passage, for example.
For an object with a smooth surface, and non-fixed separation points (like a sphere or circular cylinder), the drag coefficient may vary with Reynolds number Re, up to extremely high values (Re of the order 10 7). [16] [17]
For spheres in uniform flow in the Reynolds number range of 8×10 2 < Re < 2×10 5 there co-exist two values of the Strouhal number. The lower frequency is attributed to the large-scale instability of the wake, is independent of the Reynolds number Re and is approximately equal to 0.2. The higher-frequency Strouhal number is caused by small ...