The course provides fundamental knowledge of the laws governing the motion of incompressible fluids. By the end of the course, the student will have acquired the ability to solve basic engineering problems in fluid mechanics, with an emphasis on internal flows. In addition, in the area of biological flows, the student will be able to describe flow in conduit networks qualitatively and quantitatively using the tools acquired during the course.
Knowledge of mathematical analysis and physics. In accordance with the study plan, to take “Fluidodinamica e Biofluidodinamica" you must have passed "Analisi Matematica I" and "Fisica Generale (Fisica I + Fisica per la medicina)".
Lectures will be the teaching method. Practical exercises (16 hours) will be organized within the course, focusing on solving engineering-related problems and aiming to enable students to develop critical analysis skills on the topics. Computer-aided hemodynamic simulation activities (4 hours) are also planned.
The exam consists of a written test (lasting 150 minutes) focusing on the methods of fluid mechanics analysis covered in the course. The written test includes solving three practical problems and answering one theory question. Each practical problem or theory question is scored between 7 and 8 points depending on its difficulty. When evaluating exercises, particular attention is given to a detailed and comprehensive description of the solution procedure.
The oral test is mandatory if the score obtained in the written test is between 16/30 and 19/30 (extremes included). If the score of the written test is greater than 19/30, the oral exam is optional. It is not possible to take the oral exam in a call different from the one in which the written test was taken. Normally, the oral exam takes place within one week of the written test.
The written test results and the date of the oral exam are published online according to the methods communicated before the exam. Typically, this publication occurs on the Moodle page of the current academic year's course.
Basic notions (properties of fluids, the assumption of fluid as a continuum); fluid statics (isotropy of pressure, relationship between pressure and depth, manometers, forces on flat and curved surfaces, Archimedes' principle); fluids in motion (Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches, local acceleration and convective acceleration); flow visualization (streamlines, smoke lines, trajectories); deformation and stress; classification of flows (compressible/incompressible, non-viscous/viscous, steady/unsteady, laminar/turbulent), the Bernoulli equation; integral form of governing equations (from closed system to control volume, conservation of mass, conservation of momentum, conservation of energy); differential form of governing equations (conservation of mass, Navier-Stokes equations); similarity and dimensional analysis (Buckingham's theorem); entrance region; Couette flow; Poiseuille flow; viscometers (capillary viscometer, coaxial cylinder viscometer, cone and plate viscometer); rheology and an introduction to hemorheology; turbulent flow in circular ducts; distributed and concentrated pressure losses with an overview of duct networks; pulsatile flow in rigid ducts: Womersley solution and Fry-Greenfield solution; compliance; electrical analogy and an introduction to lumped parameter models and computational fluid dynamics (CFD); segmentation, mesh generation, simulation, and analysis of results obtained from the CFD simulation of a hemodynamic problem using the open-source software SimVascular.
