Incompressible flow


In fluid mechanics or more generally continuum mechanics, an incompressible flow is solid or fluid flow in which the divergence of velocity is zero. This is more precisely termed isochoric flow. It is an idealization used to simplify analysis. In reality, all materials are compressible to some extent. Note that isochoric refers to flow, not the material property. This means that under certain circumstances, a compressible material can undergo (nearly) incompressible flow. However, by making the 'incompressible' assumption, the governing equations of material flow can be simplified to a good degree.