TENSOR APPLICATIONS Background for Transport Phenomena: ChE 7130 Dr. John R.

Collier, LSU ChE The primary references for this material are Transport Phenomena by R.B. Bird, W.E. Stewart, and E.N. Lightfoot published by John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1960, abbreviated BSL; Fundamentals of Polymer Processing by S. Middleman, McGraw Hill, New York, 1977, abbreviated SM; and Laminar Flow and Convective Transport Process by L. Gary Leal, Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, 1992, abbreviated LGL. This supplement is not intended to be comprehensive but to complement the material in BSL and LGL for this course. TENSORS Zero order (zero rank) tensors are scalar quantities, i.e. terms having only a magnitude and no direction associated with them, and are represented as normal letters without bold or underscore emphasis. An example of a zero order tensor would be n which represents the number of terms in an equation. First order (first rank) tensors are commonly known as vectors, i.e. terms having a magnitude and one direction associated with them and therefore in three dimensional space a vector has three orthogonal (independent) components, all of which can be but are not necessarily non-zero and non-equal to each other. They are represented as bold characters or with a single wavy underline. An example would be a velocity v = v which may have three independent
components vx , vy , and vz in Cartesian coordinate or vr , v
, and vz in cylindrical coordinates, etc. Unit vector,
i =
i are those having a magnitude of one and pointed in the coordinate ~ direction indicated by the dummy index, i. Therefore we can write a velocity vector in either closed form (bold) or in component form as with the velocity vector v = vx
x+ vy
y + vz
z in Cartesian cooridnates and v = vr
r+v


+ vz
z in cylindrical coordinates (Note: v
is the tangential linear velocity in the  direction and not the radial velocity, i.e. it has units of length per unit time). In these notes and in the course the Einsteinian tensor notation will be used; i.e. a repeated dummy index indicates summation unless otherwise indicated therefore when BSL would write i vi
i is written in this text as vi
i = vx
x+ vy
y + vz
z = vr
r+v


+ vz
z . Often the dummy index will be represented by numerals to remain general and not specifiy the coordiinate system, i.e. vi
i = v1
1+ v2
2 + v3
3 for three dimensional space. The scalar product or dot product of two vectors is a scalar, i.e. (A
B) = AB cos  , where  is the acute angle between A and B and the dot product is equal to the magnitude of A multiplied by the project of B on A. An equivalent statement is that (A
B) =A1 B1 +A2 B2 +A3 B3 if Ai and Bi are components along coordinate axes. Since cos 0 = 1, the dot product of a vector on itself is the square of its magnitude, i.e. (A
A) = A2 = (vx2 + vy2 + vz2 ). The dot product is a reduction of tensor order manipulation where it indicates in general that the order of the product is the sum of the orders of the two terms minus two.

The vector product or cross product of two vectors is a vector and in general the rank of a cross product is the sum of the ranks of the two terms minus one. This is indicated by [A x B] = Ai Bj i j k
k =

1  A1  B1

2
3

A2 A3 B2 B3

 = 

1 A2 A3  -
2 A1 A3  +
3 A1 A2 


B2 B3 

B1 B3 

B1 B2 

where i j k is the alternating unit tensor and i j k = + 1 if ijk = 123, or 231, or 312, i.e. right handed ; and i j k = - 1 if ijk = 321, 132, or 213, i.e. left handed ; and i j k = 0 if any two indices are the same. Another commonly used term is the Kronecker delta,
i j = +1 if i = j and
i j = 0 if i  j . Second order (second rank) tensors have a magnitude and two directions associated with them and can have up to nine independent components. Three quantities of interest in Transport Phenomena that are second order tensors are stress, strain, and strain rate. The stress tensor is

 =
i
j ij =

11  21  31

12 22 32

13   2 3  where the first index for the matrix row indicates the 33 

normal to the surface upon which the component exits, the second index for the matrix column indicates the direction of the force action. The terms
i
j are unit dyads each having one term in the matrix with a magnitude of one and all the others being zero.
without a subscript is the unit
1 0 0
0 1 0 tensor.
=  0 1 0  and
1
2 =  0 0 0  etc. If  i j =  j i , i.e. a tensor equals its transpose  0 0 1  0 0 0 (interchange rows and columns,  =  t) then the tensor is a symmetrical tensor. The stress tensor is normally considered to be symmetrical and the strain and strain rate tensors are normally defined to be symmetrical also. However, if  i j = - j i , i.e.  = -  t, then this tensor is referred to as being an antisymmetric or skew symmetric tensor. It can be shown that for every symmetrical tensor the off diagonal terms are mirrored i.e.
11 12 13 
 1 1 0 0  =  12 22  2 3  , and  =  0  2 2 0  with respect to a set of axes referred to   1 3 2 3 33  0 0  3 3 as the principle axes, x1 , x2 , and x3. Tensor operations with second order tensors are similar to those with first order tensor but since more indicies are involved the rule of performing an operation on inner indicies first and then outer must be observed. This rule is indicated by the definition of the double dot product between two second order tensors, say  and , that is an tensorial order reduction operation of the sum of the orders minus four. ( :  ) = (
i
j  i j :
k
l  k l ) = (
i
j :
k
l  i j  k l ) = (
i

j k
l  i j  k l ) = (
i l
j k  i j  k l ) =  i j  j i . It can also be shown that there are three quantities, called invariants, associated with any second order tensor, say  , that do not change upon rotation, inversion, or reflection of the coordinate axes. One definitions of these invariants is: I1 = ( :
) =  i i = 1 1 + 2 2 + 3 3 = trace  = tr  ; I2 = ( :  ) =  i j  j i = tr ()2 ; and I3 = det  = i j k 1 i 2 j 3 k . Combination of these invariants are also invariant but for a second order tensor only three are

independent. Two others that are sometimes used are I2' =

1 2 (I1 - I2) and I3' = tr ()3 = i jj kki. 2

The vector differential operator, known as nabla or del, is used in many tensor

1
summing once over i, where h i is a scale factor hi
xi



that in Cartesian coordinates hi = 1 ; and  =
i =
x +
y +
z . In cylindrical
xi
x
y
z 1


coordinates h r = h z = 1, and h
= r ; therefore  =
r +

+
z ; and in spherical
r
z r

1
1

coordinates h r = 1, h
= r , and h  = r sin ; therefore  =
r +

+
 .
r r

r sin

 The vector differential operator is not a true vector and therefore does not have all the properties of a vector, it must operate on some other term. When it operates on a scalar quantity such as pressure, P, the result is a vector quantity referred to as the gradient of a scalar field, e.g. the
calculus operations and is defined  =
i

1
P
P
P +

+
z .
r
z r

When the vector differential operator operates through a dot product on a vector such as velocity, v, the result is a scalar quantity referred to as the divergence of a vector field, e.g. the
gradient of pressure and this in cylindrical coordinates is  P =
r divergence of velocity is (
v) =
i j coordinates is

1
vj 1
vi = summed over i, and in cylindrical hi
x i hi
x i

vr
vz 1
1
v


+

+
z )
(vr
r+v


+ vz
z) = + + .
r
z
r
z r

r

When the vector differential operator operates through a cross product on a vector it is referred to as the curl of a vector field and the result is a vector, e.g. the curl of velocity also known as
(
v) = (
r the vorticity and related to the spin velocity is [ x v] = (
i coordinates this is [ x v] = (

1
) x (
j v j ) and in cylindrical hi
xi

v

v
vz 1
vz 1
(r v
) 1
vr )
r + ( r
)

+ ( )
z .


z
z
r r

r
r r

Another important operator is the Laplacian Operator, a scalar operator that does not change the order of the term it operates upon, this operator is  2 = 
 . In cylindrical coordinates this is  2 = [
r

1




+
z ]
[
r +

+
z ] and therefore


z
r
z r

1
2 1

2
2 2 ). The   =( term results from the fact that the
r and

r
r
r 2
z 2 r 2

2

unit vectors in cylindrical coordinates are functions of positions;
r =

and

= -
r.

1
+


r r 1
  r
r