6 Newtonian Flow
As indicated in Fig. 6.9, the shear layer grows and meets at the axis as the
inviscid core disappears within the length
i
L
termed as the inviscid core
length, at which the viscous stress dominates the entire cross section. The
profile then continues to change due to the viscous effect until a developed
flow is achieved, where the length is often termed as the profile develop-
ment region
c
L . The total length
ci
LL is called the entrance length
e
L ,
and after which the flow is fully developed, where the velocity profile
across the cross section does not change toward the downstream.
6.4.1 Entrance Flow
The entrance length for a laminar flow can be correlated in the forms
Re
d
L
e
0650. (Boussinesq, 1891 and Nikuradse, 1933)
(6.4.1)
h
h
e
Re
d
L
05050 .. (Shah and London, 1978)
(6.4.2)
where Reynolds number
Re is based on the average velocity U through a
cross section area and the diameter
d , i.e.
X
dURe . Note that the
Shah-London correlation is valid for an arbitrary pipe shape in a cross sec-
tion, where
h
d is the hydraulic diameter (four times hydraulic radius
h
r ),
which is defined by
h
p
h
r
l
A
d 44
¸
¸
¹
·
¨
¨
©
§
(6.4.3)
where
A is the cross-section area and
p
l is the wetted perimeter, that pe-
rimeter where the fluid is in contact with the solid boundary. The limit of
the Reynolds number is approximately 2300 for engineering applications,
whereas with carefully controlled conditions the Reynolds number may go
up to higher values in excess of 40,000.
For a turbulent flow, the situation is somewhat different from the lami-
nar case. In order to observe the entrance length
e
L
of the fully developed
turbulent flow, an extra length may be needed for the detailed structure of
the turbulent flow to develop in addition to the profile development region.
For the high turbulent strength flow at the inlet of the pipe, the entrance
length
e
L is given by the following correlation at the Reynolds numbers
normally encountered
320