Compressible flow (or gas dynamics) is the branch of fluid mechanics that deals with flows having significant changes in fluid density. While all flows are compressible, flows are usually treated as being incompressible when the Mach number (the ratio of the speed of the flow to the speed of sound) is smaller than 0.3 (since the density change due to velocity is about 5% in that case). The study of compressible flow is relevant to high-speed aircraft, jet engines, rocket motors, high-speed entry into a planetary atmosphere, gas pipelines, commercial applications such as abrasive blasting, and many other fields.
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👉 Compressible fluid in the context of Nose cone design
Because of the problem of the aerodynamic design of the nose cone section of any vehicle or body meant to travel through a compressible fluid medium (such as a rocket or aircraft, missile, shell or bullet), an important problem is the determination of the nose cone geometrical shape for optimum performance. For many applications, such a task requires the definition of a solid of revolution shape that experiences minimal resistance to rapid motion through such a fluid medium.
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Compressible fluid in the context of Incompressible flow
In fluid mechanics, or more generally continuum mechanics, incompressible flow is a flow in which the material density does not vary over time. Equivalently, the divergence of an incompressible flow velocity is zero. Under certain conditions, the flow of compressible fluids can be modelled as incompressible flow to a good approximation.
Compressible fluid in the context of Turbomachinery
Turbomachinery, in mechanical engineering, describes machines that transfer energy between a rotor and a fluid, including both turbines and compressors. While a turbine transfers energy from a fluid to a rotor, a compressor transfers energy from a rotor to a fluid. It is an important application of fluid mechanics.
These two types of machines are governed by the same basic relationships including Newton's second law of motion and Euler's pump and turbine equation for compressible fluids. Centrifugal pumps are also turbomachines that transfer energy from a rotor to a fluid, usually a liquid, while turbines and compressors usually work with a gas.