Flow Lines, Stream function and Potential Function

1. What are flow lines?

These are the line drawings, which characterize a flow field. They can be
experimentally generated and can also be expressed mathematically in the form of
equations of curves. They assist in flow visualization. There are three types of flow lines,
namely, Streamlines, Pathlines and streaklines.
2. Pathlines:
Pathline is a locus of a fluid particle as it moves along the flowing fluid. Pathlines
can be experimentally traced by adding very fine neutrally buoyant particles in the fluid
and photographing them during their motion. Consider an unsteady flow field described
by

v

x, t
( ) . Then the equation of motion of a fluid particle can be described by
dx
i
dt
v
i

x, t
( )
where
3 , 2 , 1 i
.
Suppose, the initial position of the particle is given by 0 i i
x x
at 0
t t
.
The solution of the above set of (three) differential equations is
x
i
x
i
t
( ) ,
3 , 2 , 1 i
We can either use t as a parameter to describe the path line or we may eliminate t to get
two equations of the curve.
3. Example: (In this and the following examples, velocity, distance, and time are
expressed in the dimensionless form)
Consider the velocity field:
v
1
x
1
t, v
2
2x
2
t, v
3
3x
3
t
. We wish to determine
pathline passing through point
( ) 1 , 1 , 1
at t 0.
Solution: We solve the following set of equations
t x
dt
dx
1
1
,
x
10
1
, t x
dt
dx
2
2
2 ,
1
20
x
and t x
dt
dx
3
3
3 ,
1
30
x

p
0
, t
0

p, t
1
The solutions of the three equations are
x
1
c
1
e
t
2
2

_
,

,
x
2
c
2
e
t
2
( )
,
x
3
c
3
e
3 2 t
2
( )
The constants are
c
1
c
2
c
3
1
, hence
x
1
e
t
2
2

_
,

,
x
2
e
t
2
( )
,
x
3
e
3 2 t
2
( )
We can obtain the pathline by plotting
x
1
t
( )
, x
2
t
( )
, x
3
t
( ) as a function of t. Alternatively
we can write the equation of the pathline by eliminating tbetween pair of equations.
x
2
x
1
2
and x
3
x
1
3
Note that the particle, which starts from
( ) 1 , 1 , 1
at t 1will trace the pathline, which is
described by the equation
x
1
e
t
2
1
2

_
,

( ) 1
2
2

t
e x
( ) 1 2 3
3
2

t
e x
This pathline is different from that traced by the particle, which starts from
( ) 1 , 1 , 1
at
t 0
4. Streamlines:
Streamline is an instantaneous curve in the fluid such that fluid velocity at any
point on the curve is tangent to the curve. If
s
is distance measured along the curve, then
the equation of the streamline is
v
v
ds
p d

where

p
is the position vector of a point on the streamline and

vis the fluid velocity. In

the component form, the equation above can be written as
v
v
ds
dx

1 1

,
v
v
ds
dx

2 1

and
v
v
ds
dx

3 3

At 0
s s
, 10 1
x x
, 20 2
x x
, 30 3
x x
. This initial condition corresponds to the position
of the point on the streamline corresponding to 0
s s
.
The equation of the streamlines can also be written as
3
3
2
2
1
1
v
dx
v
dx
v
dx

Note that since streamline is the instantaneous curve, time is constant at any point on the
streamline
2
5. Example:
Find streamline passing through point

p(1,1,1)
at 1 t in a flow governed by the
following equations
3 3 2 2 1 1
), 1 /( , 2 x v t x v t x v +

Solution: The equations governing the streamline are
( )
3
3
2
2
1
1
1
2 x
dx
x
dx t
t x
dx

Since we are interested in instantaneous curve, we treat time as constant along the
streamline. This allows us to integrate the equations to get
( )
2 3 1 2 1
ln ln 1 ln
2
1
C x C x t x
t
+ + +
Since the streamline passes through

p(1,1,1)
, we have
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
2 1
1 ln 1 ln 1 1 ln
2
1
C C t
t
+ + +
From these, we get
2 1
0 C C
Equations of the streamline reduces to
( )
3 2 1
ln ln 1 ln
2
1
x x t x
t
+
On simplification, this gives
( )
t
x x
2
3 1
and ( )
( ) 1 1
3 2
+

t
x x
Since we need the streamline at 1 t , we substitute this value of time in the equation
written above and get
( )
2
3 1
x x and ( )
2 1
3 2
x x
We can plot this streamline in
2 1
x x plane using 3
x
as the parameter.
It is important to understand the difference between pathline and streamline.
Pathline represents a trajectory of a particle starting from a given point at a given time.
Different points on the pathline correspond to different times. On the other hand,
streamline is a line drawn at a given instant of time and hence all points on this line
correspond to the same time.
6. Streak Lines
3
The injected dye will form streaks in a flowing fluid. Streak originating from a
point O (source) is a continuous curve, each point of which corresponds to a fluid
particle, which has left O some time back. Thus, to find the streakline passing through
point
x
10
, x
20
, x
30
( ) , we solve the equation
dx
1
dt
v
1
,
dx
2
dt
v
2
and
dx
3
dt
v
3
with the condition

p x
10
, x
20
, x
30
( ) at t . We solve the equations. The resulting
solution is
x
1
x
1
t,
( )
, x
2
x
2
t,
( )
, x
3
x
3
t,
( ) . At any instant of time, tis fixed and
the streakline becomes a function of the parameter . The value of varies in the range
< t. Like streamlines, streaklines are also instantaneous lines.
7. Example:
Find the streaklines passing through point

p(1,1,1)
in a flow governed by the
following equations
3 3 2 2 1 1
), 1 /( , 2 x v t x v t x v +

Solution:
We solve the equation
dx
1
dt
2x
1
t,
dx
2
dt

x
2
t+1
( )
and
dx
3
dt
x
3
The general solution to this equation is
ln x
1
t
2
+c
1
, ( ) 1
2 2
+ t c x and
ln x
3
t+c
3
The initial conditions are: t , 10 1
x x
, 20 2
x x
and 30 3
x x
. The equations of the
streakline are
ln
x
1
x
10

_
,
t
2

2
,
x
2
x
20

t+1
+1

_
,
and
ln
x
3
x
30

_
,
t
We can eliminate by noting that
tln
x
3
x
30

_
,
. Hence
ln
x
1
x
10

_
,

t
2
tln
x
3
x
30

_
,

1
]
1
2
and
x
2
x
20

t+1
t+1ln
x
3
x
30

_
,

_
,

Thus for a given time t, we choose different values of

x
3
in the range x
30
x
3
< x
30
e
t

and calculate the values of x
1
and x
2
using the equations above.
4
For a steady flow field, the pathlines, streamlines and streaklines coincide
with each other.
5