Nondimensionalization

This appendix outlines the role of several key dimensional and nondimensional parameters in micro- and nanoscale fluid mechanics that come from nondimensionalization of governing equations. A key advantage of nondimensionalization is that it leads to a compact description of flow parameters (i.e., Re) and thus leads to generalization. Nondimensionalization can be a powerful tool, but it is useful only if implemented with insight into the physics of the problems.

Each computer code will have a set of reference nondimensionalizations similar to these; a specific example is given in Section 3.5.3.

We show how our Python interface outperforms the existing text-file-based configuration mechanism, providing features like automatic nondimensionalization of physical quantities and handling of complex parameter dependencies.