Theory of Irrotational Flow

Abstract

We analyze the Navier Stokes equation, and show that all non-viscous, irrotational flows are barotropic. As far as we know, this has never been stated in the literature before, and indirectly suggests that vorticity is required to make these flows non-barotropic. Both the pressure, temperature, speed, entropy, enthalpy, and a Bernoulli function are derived to be only functions of the density (which is a function of space and time). When we also require steady flow, the Bernoulli function is a constant in all space, not just on streamlines.

9 pages, 0 figures, 8 sections, 36 equations, 6 references