Fluid mechanics forms an essential part of the knowledge of petroleum engineers.
Its applications can be found in almost every area of petroleum engineering
including drilling, well completing, production technology, transportation and
refining. The design methods and everyday practice of these special fields apply
their own application-oriented hydraulics. These independently developed branches
of applied fluid mechanics are often not very well integrated. There seems to be
a need to treat these individual sections together within the general framework of
continuum mechanics. In addition, the elegance and logical structure of this theory
may influence the way of thinking of petroleum engineers.
The main purpose of this book to provide the petroleum engineer with a
systematic analytical approach to the solution of fluid flow problems. Certain
general laws relating to the conservation or balance of mass, momentum, energy
and entropy form the starting point. These basic principles which are in integral
form are found to be equivalent to differential field equations in regions where flow
variables are continuous. These conservation and balance equations, however,
form an indeterminate system, insufficient to yield specific solutions unless further
equations are supplied. Within the embracing concept of conservation laws and
balance equations it is necessary to define ideal materials by certain further
conditions called constitutive relations. The balance equations and the constitutive
relations together with the boundary conditions can lead to a mathematical model
of a phenomenon and to the solution of a particular problem. The solution thus
obtained may be verified by experimental investigations. This is the underlying
approach followed in the book, which is organized into ten chapters.