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acceleration—The rate of change with time of the velocity vector of a particle. If u is the vector velocity, the acceleration may be written as Du/Dt, where D/Dt is the material (or total) derivative. For most purposes in hydrodynamics where Eulerian coordinates are employed, the acceleration is decomposed as follows: where ∂u/∂t is called the local acceleration, and u · ∇u is called the convective acceleration.