1.

) Flow in a coaxial pipe. Consider a pipe of radius R with a small cylindrical

wire of radius R running axially down the center. If the remaining space in
this tube is filled with a viscous fluid and a uniform pressure gradient is
applied in the negative z direction, calculate the resulting flow rate (assume
that gravity is unimportant) as a function of and compare its magnitude to
that when the wire is absent. By how much is the flow rate reduced if =0.1?
Is this surprising? Also, determine the force per unit length exerted by the
fluid on the wire

2.) Hydrodynamic Stress in Plane Poiseuille Flow: A problem which is

currently being investigated in bioengineering laboratories is the
phenomenon of cell adhesion to surfaces in the presence of hydrodynamic
stresses. To study this, a researcher has built a rectangular flow cell which is
100 m deep, 2mm wide, and 2 cm long. The objective is to have a wall shear
stress (e.g. the stress at the lower wall the 2mm x 2 cm surface where cell
adhesion is being studied) of 100 dyne/cm2. If the working fluid has the same
viscosity as water, what should the flow rate of the pump supplying the fluid
be?

3.) Falling Disk. A disk of radius R is falling face on toward a place with velocity
V through a fluid of viscosity as depicted below. Using the lubrication
approximation (e.g. assuming that the flow in the narrow gap of size h
between the disk and the place is a quasi-parallel channel flow in the radial
direction, and that the inertial effects are negligible), calculate the force on
the disk due to the squeezing flow out of the gap.



4.) Following the Scent of Prey Diffusion From a Spherical Cell. A spherical
yeast cell 10 m in diameter is exuding carbon dioxide into its surroundings
at constant rate, M, of 1 mol/m3s.
a. What is the concentration distribution of carbon dioxide around the
cell? Hint: What will the boundary conditions for this problem be?
Heres one you can assume a constant mass rate condition I (mol/s)
at the cell surface.
b. What is the concentration in M at the cell surface (r = 10 m)?
c. How does the concentration gradient decay with r?
d. Assume the yeast is fed on a smaller bacteria cell 2 m in length. The
bacterial cell attempts to detect the yeast cell by sensing the resulting
CO2 produced by the cell. If the minimum concentration the bacteria
can detect is 1 nM what is the maximum distance the bacteria can
sense the presence of a yeast cell?
e. Spatial Detection: In order to determine the location (i.e. get
directional information on their prey), some bacteria probe the
concentration gradient produced by exuding cells. Simply put, they
are able to detect spatial differences in concentration between their
leading and lagging cell edge and swim up the gradient towards their
prey. If the bacterial cell is 1 mm away from the yeast cell, what is the
concentration difference in nM produced across the 2 m bacterial
cell?
f. Temporal Detection: Another way to probe concentration
differences over space (i.e. detect a concentration gradient) is to
measure the concentration at one point, swim a certain distance over
a period of time, and measure again at a new position. If the bacteria
can swim 100 m/sec and samples the solution concentration every 1
second, what is the concentration difference it is able to detect if
located 1 mm away from the cell? Hint: Use the chain rule to relate the
concentration gradient in terms of bacterial velocity.

5.) Evaporation of a liquid film. A vertical surface is in contact with a
continuous flow of liquid falling downward under the action of gravity.
Evaporation of a volatile species A occurs at the air/liquid interface. Calculate
the rate of evaporation. In this problem you will determine how much
evaporation occurs over a length of the film as a function of the film velocity.
The flow is assumed unidirectional.
a. Solve for the fluid velocity profile. Hint: You can apply a no slip
condition on the surface and a stress-free condition at the film surface.
b. Calculate the average and maximum velocity of the fluid.
c. Write down the appropriate mass transport equation for species A.
Assuming the film thickness is much smaller than the characteristic

d.

e.

f.

g.

length of the surface, render the equation dimensionless. Hint: You

should be able to scale away diffusion in the x-direction.
Assuming that the solute has a fixed concentration at the film surface
and cannot penetrate the solid surface (i.e. zero flux at y = 0) and has a
initial concentration CA = Co at x = 0, write out the appropriate
conditions in y and x.
If we assume the region of space where evaporation is occurring is
confined to a very thin region close to the film surface, we can
approximate the fluid velocity equal to the maximum velocity
calculated in part b.
If we adjust our coordinate system such that the film surface is at y =
0, and assume the evaporating plane is infinite, we can solve this
problem via simple affine stretching. Demonstrate how the solution to
the concentration distribution is expressible as a complementary
error function.
Calculate the total rate at which moles of A are evaporated over a
length L and width W of the surface. Hint: You will need to calculate
the mass flux and relate this to the dimensions of the surface (we did
this in class for the sugar mixing in coffee problem).

6.) Taylor Dispersion. Consider flow pressure driven unidirectional flow

between two parallel plates. In this problem you will investigate the
dispersion of dye in a parabolic flow field as a result of transverse diffusion
and convection in a transversely varying fluid velocity field.
a. Using the appropriate equations, calculate the velocity field for this
channel configuration.
b. Compute the average velocity U and express your equation from
above in terms of the average velocity, U.
c. Assume now, that a bolus of dye is loaded into the channel and
advected downstream with the fluid flow. If you are moving with the
bolus at a velocity U (e.g. the average fluid velocity) what is the
governing mass transport equation for the bolus in this moving
frame?
d. Assuming the concentration is quasi-steady solve for the effective
dispersion coefficient of the bolus far down the channel (i.e. when
transverse diffusion has had sufficient time to smooth out the
concentration gradient over the channel height. ) Hint: this will make
one term in your equation independent of channel height. Why?
Double Hint: Recall that the constant relating mass flux to a
concentration gradient is the diffusion coefficient. Hence, you will
need calculate the flux of the dye in the axial direction to arrive at
your final result.

7.) Frozen Fruit. It is known that oranges can be exposed to freezing
temperatures for short periods of time without sustaining serious damage.
Consider an orange 0.10 m in diameter, originally at a uniform temperature

of 5C, suddenly exposed to surrounding air at -5C. For a surface heat

transfer coefficient, between the air and the orange surface, of 15 W/m2-K,
how long will it take for the surface of the orange to reach 0C? Properties of
the orange are the following: = 940 kg/ m3, k = 0.47 W/m-K, cp = 3.8 kJ/kg-
K.

8.) Transient Heating. A copper cylinder with a diameter of 3 in. is initially at a

uniform temperature of 70 F. How long after being placed in a medium at
1000 F with an associated heat transfer coefficient of 4 Btu/h ft2 F will the
temperature at the center of the cylinder reach 500 F, if the height of the
cylinder is (a) 3 in, (b) 6 in (c) 24 in (d) 5 ft?
9.) Transient Heating. Soil, having a thermal diffusivity of 5.16 x 10-7 m2/s, has
its surface suddenly raised and maintained at 1100 K from its initial value of
280K. Determine the temperature at a depth 0.25 m after a period of 5 h has
elapsed at this surface condition.
10.) Inspectional Analysis. Consider the unsteady oscillatory flow in a channel
of width 2 b depicted below. The fluid is incompressible, and the flow is
unidirectional in the x direction. We impose an oscillatory pressure
gradient given by:

P
= Asin(t) ,
x
where A is the gradient amplitude and is the frequency of oscillation in
time (the fluid sloshes back and forth in the x-direction).

a. Write down the momentum equation in the x-direction and show
which terms are zero.
b. Render the equations dimensionless using t* = t as the
dimensionless time and Uc as an unknown velocity scale. Divide out by
A to make the equations dimensionless.
c. The characteristic velocity is determined by balancing the driving
force in the problem (the pressure gradient) with either the inertial or
viscous term. Recognizing this, determine the characteristic velocity
for 1) high and 2) low frequencies, and explicitly identify the single
dimensionless group the problem depends on in either case (hint: its
a strange looking Reynolds number).


11.) Transient temperature distribution. Fluid at an initial temperature To
passes through a channel where it enters a region where the top and bottom
surface are held at a constant temperature Ts . In this problem you will
estimate how long this heated region has to be in order to double the initial
temperature of the fluid.
a. Assuming sufficiently high fluid velocities, render the appropriate
equation and boundary conditions of this problem dimensionless and
scale away any negligible transport terms. (Hint: conduction in the x-
direction will be negligible at large Pe number).
b. Estimate the velocity profile using plug flow and solve for the
asymptotic and decaying temperature distributions.
c. Do a back of the envelope estimate to determine how long the
heater must be to double the fluid temperature. This involves just
getting the lead eigenvalue of the decaying solution and your
asymptotic solution (we did this in class). Hint: You can find the
channel length by performing an energy balance on the flow entering
the channel, and then calculating under what downstream
dimensionless length L* this value increases by a factor of 2.
d. Based on the above result, if I double the flow rate, by what factor do I
need to increase the heater length by?