‘Uncertainty’ principle in two fluid–mechanics

Abstract

Hamilton’s principle (or principle of stationary action) is one of the basic modelling tools in finite-degree-of-freedom mechanics. It states that the reversible motion of mechanical systems is completely determined by the corresponding Lagrangian which is the difference between kinetic and potential energy of our system. The governing equations are the Euler-Lagrange equations for Hamil- ton’s action. Hamilton’s principle can be naturally extended to both one-velocity and multi-velocity continuum mechanics (infinite-degree-of-freedom systems). In particular, the motion of multi–velocity continuum is described by a coupled system of ‘Newton’s laws’ (Euler-Lagrange equations) for each component. The introduction of dissipative terms compatible with the second law of thermodynamics and a natural restriction on the behaviour of potential energy (convexity) allows us to derive physically reasonable and mathematically well posed governing equations. I will consider a simplest example of two-velocity fluids where one of the phases is incompressible (for example, flow of dusty air, or flow of compressible bubbles in an incompressible fluid). A very surprising fact is that one can obtain different governing equations from the same Lagrangian. Different types of the governing equations are due to the choice of independent variables and the corresponding virtual motions. Even if the total momentum and total energy equations are the same, the equations for individual components differ from each other by the presence or absence of gyroscopic forces (also called ‘lift’ forces). These forces have no influence on the hyperbolicity of the governing equations, but can drastically change the distribution of density and velocity of components. To the best of my knowledge, such an uncertainty in obtaining the governing equations of multi- phase flows has never been the subject of discussion in a ‘multi-fluid’ community.