The concept of conservation of mass holds a fundamental role in most problems in fluid physics. For a given problem this concept is cast in the form of an equation of continuity. Such an equation describes a condition—conservation of mass—that must be satisfied in any formal analysis of a problem. Thus an equation of continuity often is one of several complementary equations that are solved simultaneously to arrive at a solution to a flow problem, for example, the flow velocity as a function of coordinate position in a flow field. (Typically these complementary equations, as we will see in later chapters, involve conservation of momentum or energy, or both.) Although we did not explicitly use this idea in analyzing the one-dimensional flow problems at the end of Chapter 3, it turns out that continuity was implicitly satisfied in setting up each problem. We will return to these problems to illustrate this point. We will develop equations of continuity for three general cases: purely fluid flow, saturated single-phase flow in porous media, and unsaturated flow in porous media. The most general of the three equations is that for unsaturated flow, where pores are partially filled with the fluid phase of interest, such that the degree of saturation with respect to that phase is less than one. We will then show that this equation reduces, in the special case in which the degree of saturation equals one, to a simpler form appropriate for saturated single-phase flow. Then, this equation for saturated flow could be reduced further, in the special case in which the porosity equals one, to a form appropriate for purely fluid flow. For pedagogical reasons, however, we shall reverse this order and consider purely fluid flow first. In addition we will consider conservation of a solid or gas dissolved in a liquid, and take this opportunity to introduce Fick’s law for molecular diffusion. For simplicity we will consider only species that do not react chemically with the liquid, nor with the solid phases of a porous medium. Most of the derivations below are based on the idea of a small control volume of specified dimensions embedded within a fluid or porous medium.
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