Euler Was Right, Prandtl Was Wrong I

Euler vs Prandtl

In 1755 the great mathematician Euler formulated the Euler equations for slightly viscous nearly incompressible flow (of air and water) with the following prophetic declaration:

• My two equations contain all what is contained in the theory of fluid mechanics. It is not the principles of mechanics we lack to pursue this analysis but only Analysis (computation), which is not sufficiently developed for this purpose.  

Euler's equations are formulated in terms of fluid velocity and fluid pressure depending on space and time as an expression of force balance (Newton's 2nd Law) and incompressibility complemented by a slip boundary condition with only pressure forces from a solid wall meeting the fluid, that is, with zero skin friction allowing the tangential flow velocity to be non-zero restricting only the normal flow velocity to be zero on a wall.  Euler's equations are parameter-free (formally zero viscosity), thus meeting Einstein's ideal of a mathematical model. The only force acting on fluid particles is pressure and shear forces are assumed to be negligible.  Euler made the assumption about zero skin friction from experiments showing very small skin friction in slightly viscous flow with massive evidence in modern times. 

Eulers adversary d'Alembert quickly crushed Euler's grand plan by showing that Euler's equations admitted certain solutions (potential solutions) showing zero net forces (drag, lift) of a body moving through air or water, in direct contradiction to observation. This was coined d'Alembert's Paradox which from start, as expressed by Chemistry Nobel Laureate Hinshelwood:

• separated practical fluid mechanics (hydraulics) describing phenomena (drag, lift), which cannot be explained, from theoretical fluid mechanics explaining phenomena (zero drag, lift), which cannot be observed.       

Zero lift is incompatible with flight and so d'Alembert's Paradox had to be resolved, in particular after powered human flight was shown to be possible by the Wright brothers in 1903, and so the young fluid mechanician Prandtl presented a resolution in a sketchy 8-page conference contribution in 1904, where he discriminated potential flow with zero skin friction claiming that a real fluid always meets a solid wall with zero tangential velocity named no-slip.  Prandtl thus "resolved" d'Alembert's Paradox by declaring that Euler's equations with slip had to be replaced by the Navier-Stokes equations including small viscosity and no-slip. But no-slip was an ad hoc assumption which Prandtl could not justify since the exact nature of the microscopic contact between fluid and wall was unknown to him and so has remained into our days. 

Prandtl in 1904 with his self-built fluid test channel resolving d'Alembert's Paradox.

Anyway, the scientific community was by Prandtl relieved from a main headache making theory of fluid mechanics into a joke and accordingly Prandtl was named Father of Modern Fluid Mechanics based on the Navier-Stokes equations with no-slip and not Euler's equations with slip. 

But there was one main caveat: The Navier-Stokes equations with no-slip have solutions with boundary layers so thin that computational resolution is impossible with any forseeable computational power.  Prandtl's resolution thus came with the cost of making Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD into an impossibility asking for resolution of atomistic scales in a macroscopic setting.

In 2010, Hoffman and Johnson published in Journal of Mathematical Fluid Mechanics a different resolution of d'Alembert's paradox showing that the reason zero-drag/lift of potential flow cannot observed, is that potential flow (in fact any laminar flow) is unstable and thus turns into turbulent flow. This was shown by computing turbulent solutions to Eulers equations with slip with drag and lift in close correspondence to observations supported by stability analysis, as exposed in detail in the book Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow. As a spin off a New Theory of Flight was developed revealing the true Secret of Flight in physical terms, very different from the unphysical lifting line theory advocated by Prandtl. 

Since then massive evidence has been accumulated by Johan Jansson showing that computing turbulent solutions of Euler's equations with slip opens basically all of slightly viscous nearly incompressible flow to predictive simulation without parameter input and need to resolve thin no-slip boundary layers, thus with readily available computing power, all along Euler's prophecy. More evidence: HighLift Workshop.

Euler was thus right, and he understood that he just had to wait for computing power to see his prophecy become true. It took 250 years, but now it is here.

It means that Prandtl was wrong claiming drag and lift to be effects of thin no-slip boundary layers thereby making CFD into an impossibility. 

Question

How will the fluid dynamics community react to replacing Prandtl by Euler as Father of Modern Fluid Mechanics thus changing CFD from impossible to possible? 

Further Important Facts

Turbulent solutions to Euler's equations are computed as best possible approximate solutions in the sense of having residuals which are small in a weak sense and not too large in a strong sense, in a situation when all solutions with small residual in a strong sense (laminar solutions) are unstable and do not persist over time. We thus face a new situation where only turbulent flow is computable and laminar not, as an expression of the fluctuating nature of turbulence, as seen in a waving flag showing the only motion which can persist. The control of the residual in strong sense introduces a viscous effect as a form of turbulent viscosity set by computation alone without need to model or measure turbulent viscosity beyond human comprehension.  

Euler was a mathematician while Prandtl as Father of Modern Fluid Mechanics was more of an engineer. Replacing Prandtl by Euler means freeing the full power of mathematics with computation in a rare example of parameter-free mathematical model with very rich applicability.

Standard CFD under a Planck dictate of no-slip has developed complicated wall models as well as turbulence models including many parameters, and an agreement has been made to adjust parameters to give  50% or more of total drag to skin friction. Turbulent Euler computations with zero skin friction show correct drag in a large variety of situations, which is incompatible with the 50% skin friction from standard CFD.

Total drag consists of pressure drag and skin friction drag. Turbulent Euler computations show that pressure drag dominates skin friction by a factor of at least 10, and so standard CFD claiming 50% skin friction must underestimate pressure drag by a factor 2. The CFD community is now wrestling under this contradiction. The investments in standard CFD are huge and will loose their value if Euler is allowed to take over from Prandtl...Compare with posts on Prandtl Medal.

Incompressible flow is well captured by the Euler equations  for Reynolds numbers (scaling with 1/viscosity) larger than about 500.000 associated with the so called drag crisis when drag of a bluff body drastically decreases with a factor 2-3 as the boundary condition effectively turns into slip from limited velocity strains, with late separation and small wake of low pressure, in particular with lift/drag around 15 for a wing allowing flight at affordable power.

Euler vs Navier-Stokes: What is viscosity?

The Navier-Stokes equations connect fluid velocity strains (derivatives in space) with shear forces through a positive coefficient of viscosity $\nu$ as a parameter to be supplied as input, assumed to be constant independent of fluid velocity in the basic case, but in general with a very complex unknown non-linear dependence on local flow velocities. Formally $\nu =0$ in the parameter-free Euler's equations.

In slightly viscous flow the coefficient of viscosity is small with a Reynolds number $Re = \frac{UL}{\nu}$ beyond drag crisis (bigger than 100.000- 500.000) with $U$ typical flow speed and $L$ typical spatial scale L. 

The Navier-Stokes equations can be complemented by a (skin) friction boundary condition with a friction parameter $\beta$ connecting (tangential) shear stress to tangential flow velocity, with slip corresponding to $\beta =0$ and effective no-slip for $\beta >1$, thus covering a range from slip to no-slip with important effects on flow separation and drag (as exposed in Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow). 

To determine the viscosity as input to the Navier-Stokes equation experimentally or theoretically has shown to be virtually impossible in the case of slightly viscous flow, which is always partially turbulent with a very complex expression of viscosity. Using Navier-Stokes equations for true prediction of slightly viscous flow has not been shown to be possible. With parameter fitting in viscosity models standard CFD can match measured drag, but generally fail in blind tests without prior knowledge of the correct value to match.

Computing turbulent solution to the Euler equations includes automatic modeling of viscosity

through weighted strong residual control as a dissipative effect with a complex flow dependence beyond viscous shear stress.  It appears as a solution to the open problem of turbulence modeling. In particular, size of the strong residual measures the turbulent dissipation as a mesh independent quantity meeting Kolmogorov's conjecture. 

The Navier-Stokes equation model (1823) with constant positive viscosity is generally viewed to be a better/more complete model then the Euler equations (1755) with formally zero viscosity. This was picked up by Prandtl in 1904 using in particular no-slip from the presence of positive viscosity as a way to discriminate potential flow and get around d'Alembert's paradox. But the more complete model showed to be boundary layer uncomputable and asking for parameter input and so non-predictive, while the basic Euler model showed to be more useful by being both computable (no boundary layers) and predictive as parameter free. 

The ultimate quest for a physicist is to find a Theory of Everything ToE as a parameter free model explaining all of basic physics. Computing turbulent solutions to the Euler equations is a ToE for fluid mechanics.