History of the development of fluid mechanics research-3
The establishment and development of the wing theory and boundary layer theory is a significant progress of the fluid mechanics, inviscid fluid theory a good combination with the boundary layer theory of viscous fluids. With the improvement of turbine and aircraft flight speed increased to 50 meters per second, the rapid expansion began from the 19th century, experimental and theoretical studies on the effect of air density changes, and provides a theoretical guidance for the high-speed flight. After the 1940s, due to the application of jet propulsion and rocket technology, the vehicle speed exceed the speed of sound, thus achieving space flight, the rapid progress of high-speed gas flow, the formation of a subdiscipline of gas dynamics, physical - chemical fluid dynamics.
To these theories, based on detonation explosives or gas medium to form a new theory in the 1940s, for the atomic bomb, explosives detonation, shock wave propagation in the air or water, the development of The blast wave theory. Since then, fluid mechanics, the development of many branches, such as hypersonic aerodynamics, supersonic aerodynamics, thin aerodynamic, electromagnetic fluid dynamics, computational fluid dynamics, two-phase (gas-liquid or gas-solid) flow.
These tremendous progress and using a variety of mathematical analysis and the establishment of large, sophisticated laboratory equipment and instruments means inseparable. Since the 1950s, computer continuous improvement, so that the original analysis method difficult to carry out the research topic, you can use a numerical method, computational fluid dynamics of this new branch. At the same time, due to the needs of civilian and military production, liquid dynamics, and other disciplines has made great progress.
In the 1960s, according to the needs of structural mechanics and solid mechanics, finite element method calculation of the elasticity problem, after ten years of development, finite element analysis of this new method of calculation used in fluid mechanics, especially in low-speed flow and fluid boundary shape complexity of the problem, the superiority is more significant. Began using the finite element method of high-speed flow problems in recent years, there have been mutual penetration and integration of the finite element method and differential method.
From the 1960s onwards, the hydrodynamics of the fluid mechanics and other subjects of mutual cross penetration, the formation of new delivery * disciplinary or interdisciplinary, such as physical - chemical fluid dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics; the original is basically a qualitative description of the problem, and gradually the quantitative research, bio-rheology is an example.