Wednesday, July 12, 2017

fluid dynamics - Why is turbulence caused?


In high Reynolds numbers we have turbulent flow. This is because the inertial forces are much greater than the viscous forces. I understand inertial forces to be actually the fictional forces due to the momentum of the moving fluid. And viscous to be the forces that drag each layers together. But why when inertial forces are too high than the viscous forces, there is turbulence? Why don't the molecules just continue to move laminarly due to their momentum? I can assume the viscous forces are not very strong in high speeds (in high inertial forces) to keep them together to form a laminar flow? But again, why they result in irrational movement after the effect of viscous forces is not anymore considerable? As a mechanical analogue, if I have balls attached together and make them travel linearly, and remove their between them attachment, they can continue to travel linearly. But what happens in fluid molecules that turbulence is created?




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