My watch list
my.chemeurope.com  
Login  

Streamline diffusion



Given an advection-diffusion equation, streamline diffusion refers to all diffusion going on along the advection direction.

Explanation

If we take an advection equation, for simplicity of writing we have assumed \nabla\cdot\mathbf{F}=0, and ||{\bold u}||=1

\frac{\partial\psi}{\partial t} +{\bold u}\cdot\nabla\psi=0.

we may add a diffusion term, again for simplicty, we assume the diffusion to be constant over the entire field.

D\nabla^2\psi,

Giving us an equation on the form:

\frac{\partial\psi}{\partial t} +{\bold u}\cdot\nabla\psi +D\nabla^2\psi =0

We may now rewrite the equation on the following form:

\frac{\partial\psi}{\partial t} +{\bold u}\cdot \nabla\psi +{\bold u}({\bold u}\cdot D\nabla^2\psi) +(D\nabla^2\psi-{\bold u}({\bold u}\cdot D\nabla^2\psi)) =0

The term below is called streamline diffusion.

{\bold u}({\bold u}\cdot D\nabla^2\psi)

Crosswind diffusion

Any diffusion orthogonal to the streamline diffusion is called crosswind diffusion, for us this becomes the term:

(D\nabla^2\psi-{\bold u}({\bold u}\cdot D\nabla^2\psi))
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Streamline_diffusion". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE