Section 1: Molecular Momentum Transport

Newton’s Law of Viscosity

What is viscosity? Viscosity is a physical property of fluids (liquids and gasses) that
pretty much measures their resistance to flow. On a more fundamental level, the term
“flow” refers to molecules moving along due to some net force. The more a fluid is able
to withstand that force, the greater its viscosity. Using a more anecdotal example, if
you’re not someone who normally “goes with the flow”, you might consider yourself
viscous.
As we’ll talk about in just a bit, viscosity is very much tied in with velocity of a fluid. If
you were to pour honey and water out of a cup, obviously the honey would flow slower
and would be deemed more viscous than water. While this is true, I challenge you to
think of it more like “under the same amount of force (i.e gravity), honey will flow much
slower than water due to its viscosity”.

Parallel Plate Example

Let’s consider a pair of large parallel plates. They each have a surface area of A and are
separated by a distance of Y. In between, there is some fluid (which again, could be a
liquid or a gas) that reside in layers between the plates.

Y
y

Now consider what happens at four different time intervals:

a)

b)
 c)

d)

Some additional context:

- Stationary plate begin to move at our relative t = 0

- We assumed the “no-slip” condition, where the layer of molecules in direct contact with
the bottom plate move together with the same velocity in the x-direction, vx
- The first layer of molecules “drag” the subsequent layers, each which has a slightly
lower velocity – this creates a velocity gradient (further explained in a bit).

By logic, you can reason the following proportionalities:

- If you had larger plates (A), you would need a greater force (F) to maintain the
same velocity (v)
- If you wanted a greater velocity (v), you would have to apply more force (F)
- Full disclosure: to this day I still don’t have a good grasp of why F is inversely
proportional to Y, so here’s an example of some hand-waviness
This yields the following symbolic relationship, where μ is the viscosity of the fluid.
𝐹 𝑣
=𝜇
𝐴 𝑌
If you are familiar with material sciences, you may notice that F/A is essentially the
term for stress. There are in fact two types of stresses; tensile and shear. A simple way
to distinguish the two is that tensile stress acts perpendicularly on the surface of an
object/molecule, whereas shear stress acts tangentially to a surface. As we are dealing
with molecules “dragging” and “sliding” past each other to drive flow, we are more
interested in shear forces acting on the molecule, generally denoted by τ.

= =
In the example for the parallel plate, we can further understand the behaviour of shear
stress and how it acts as a means of momentum transport.

As the first plate moves with some momentum (which is just velocity when you include
considerations of mass), molecules on the first layer shears against the next layer and
begins to drag them in the same direction. Albeit, it will have a slightly lower momentum
due to the viscosity of the fluid. And then the second layer drags the third, and so on,
with each layer gaining some amount of momentum like a decreasing domino effect.
Overall, momentum of fluid changes from high to low as you move in the positive y-
direction. In other words, there is a transfer of x-momentum as you move in the y-
direction.
As such, shear stress here can be further denoted as τyx, which has the net effect of
causing flux of x-momentum in the positive y-direction, where flux means “flow per unit
area”. It’s important to note that flux is always perpendicular to the flow direction. F/A
is thus replaced by τyx.
Finally, we replace V/Y with -𝜕vx/𝜕y. Essentially this explicitly represents the rate at
which momentum in the x-direction decreases as you move in the y-direction. We then
arrive at Newton’s Law of Viscosity:
𝜕𝑣𝑥
𝜏𝑦𝑥 = −𝜇
𝜕𝑦
As an exercise, could you determine units of viscosity from this equation? (Hint: stress
is measured in ‘N/m2’, velocity is measured in ‘m/s’, and distance is measured in ‘m’)
This may seem trivial, but in all honestly unit analysis is a skill that I don’t believe is
emphasized enough for engineers. It serves as a means of ensuring your models are set
up properly and that you didn’t accidently forget to include a key term. If it’s not arrantly
obvious, try to prove on a piece of paper or something that viscosity has units of N•s/m2,
or Pa•s.
Not all fluids follow this law exactly. Usually gasses or liquids with molecular weights <
5000 g/mol behave in this manner, and are called “Newtonian Fluids”. Newtonian fluids
are your friend. While they are still somewhat of a simplification, they are still
surprisingly apt at representing most common fluids.

Furthermore, we can actually prove that stress and momentum flux are one in the same
through unit analysis. Let’s first consider the units of stress, where [=] denotes “has
units of”.
 𝜕𝑣𝑥 𝑚 1
𝜏𝑦𝑥 = −𝜇 [=] 𝑃𝑎 ∙ 𝑠 ( ∙ )
𝜕𝑦 𝑠 𝑚
Right away, we can cancel out the distance and time units, which leaves us with just
Pa. Then expand Pa -> N/m2. Since N is the unit of force, and F = ma, we can then
replace N with the units of mass and acceleration.
𝑚
𝑚 1 𝑁 (𝑘𝑔 ∙ 2 )
𝑃𝑎 ∙ 𝑠 ( ∙ ) = ( 2 ) = 𝑠
𝑠 𝑚 𝑚 𝑚2
Momentum, p, is mass times velocity, so we can collect the “kg” and an (m/s), then
clean up the rest.
𝑚 1
(𝑘𝑔 ∙ )
𝑠2 = 𝑝 ∙ 𝑠
𝑚2 𝑚2
𝑝
∴ 𝜏 [=] 2
𝑚 𝑠
Momentum per unit area is defined as momentum flux. It is also per unit time, which
is because it’s a time-dependent process that changes until it reaches steady-state.
We’re going to use a similar approach to relate future terms to momentum flux.

Generalization of Newton’s Law of Viscosity

In the parallel plate example, we only needed to consider vx (velocity of fluid moving in
the x-direction), however there exists other situations where vy and vz come into play for
momentum transport. In order to apply Newton’s Law of Viscosity to all scenarios, we
need to take into account the transport of momentum from all forces in all directions

Assume you have an infinitesimally small cubic element in a fluid with axes in the x, y,
and z direction. We can use this as a model to describe pressure and viscous forces.

y-plane

z-plane
x-plane

Pressure forces act perpendicularly to a plane or surface. In relation to fluids, this is

also known as hydrostatic pressure, which acts on a fluid whether it is stationary or
moving. It can also be used to drive fluid flow, as pressure exerts a stress in the direction
of high-pressure to low-pressure (think about how a straw works). Pressure forces are
denoted by P.
Viscous forces can act on a plane in any direction, except perpendicularly. Fortunately,
as with all vectors in Cartesian coordinates, you can decompose viscous forces at any
angle into terms of x-, y- and z-components. Be careful here – although we’re saying
that viscous forces do not directly act perpendicularly to a plane, there can be
components that do (but we will group these with pressure forces later on). As you may
have figured out by now, viscous forces are actually the same thing as shear stress
described in the last section as τ.
Here’s a picture distinguishing between pressure forces (left) and the components of
viscous forces (right) relative to a typical xyz axis.

Going one step further, you can imagine how both pressure and viscous forces can move
fluids. If you kick a ball square-on, it will move. If you skim the top of the ball with your
heel, it will still move.
Taking a holistic view, you can combine the two forces, and write out the components
that will act on each plane:

X-Plane Y-Plane Z-Plane

τxx + P τyx τzx
τxy τyy + P τzy
τxz τyz τzz + P

*Don’t forget that τij means “motion in the j-direction with flux in the i-direction”. You
can refer back to the parallel plate example to make sure this resonates.

This can be written as a matrix and is denoted by Пij, or otherwise known as a “molecular
stress tensor”. As the name kind of insinuates, Пij captures both of the molecular-driven
forces (viscous and pressure) in all directions. Here is the full form:
One last concluding notes regarding Newton’s Law of Viscosity. The full form of the
equation is actually as follows:

𝜕𝑣𝑗 𝜕𝑣𝑖 2 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑣𝑦 𝜕𝑣𝑧

𝜏𝑖𝑗 = −𝜇 ( 𝜕𝑖 + ) + ( 𝜇 − 𝑘) ( 𝑥 + + ) 𝛿𝑖𝑗 , where 𝛿𝑖𝑗 = 0 for i ≠ j
𝜕𝑗 3 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑧

Under the assumption that the fluids (or the molecules) we’re working with are non-
compressible, the whole second term of the sum equals zero. Furthermore, you might
notice that there are two velcoities derivatives that are considered in the first term now.
Fortunately, you’ll often find that one or both of those terms will equal zero as well.
That’s the beauty of the general formula – despite it’s daunting appearance, often times
you’ll have a lot of terms that will cancel and simplify to make your life easier.

This is the first piece of the Navier-Stokes equation, which desribes all fluid-flow
behaviour.
The following image is an excerpt from Appendix B from Transport Phenomena. It lists
the general equation for Newton’s Law of Viscosity, then gives you all of the general
equations.