General Incompressible Potential Flow Theory
The Incompressible Potential Flow interface is used to simulate irrotational, inviscid, and incompressible flow. The continuity equation for incompressible flow can be expressed as a divergence-free constraint for the velocity
(3-335)
Moreover, irrotational flow is described as
(3-336)
As the curl of the gradient of a scalar field is zero by definition, the velocity can be approximated as the gradient of a scalar velocity potential,
ϕ
,
(3-337)
so that
Equation 3-335
and
Equation 3-337
result in the Laplace equation
(3-338)
The local gauge pressure can be obtained from Bernoulli’s equation
(3-339)
where
(3-340)
and
U
scale
is the user-defined free-stream velocity.
