Divergence and curl from orthogonal coordinate gradients ($\nabla u_i={\mathbf{e}}_i/h_i$)

For a right-handed regular system of orthogonal coordinates, the gradient in orthogonal coordinates gives $\nabla u_i={\mathbf{e}}_i/h_i$. Thus $\varphi {\mathbf{e}}_1=(\varphi h_1)\nabla u_1$, and the curl product rule givesAlso $\nabla u_2\times \nabla u_3={\mathbf{e}}_1/(h_2{h}_3)$ and the divergence of this cross product is zero, by the divergence-of-a-cross-product identity and the vanishing curl of each gradient. Applying the divergence product rule to $\varphi {\mathbf{e}}_1=(\varphi h_2{h}_3)(\nabla u_2\times \nabla u_3)$ givesCyclic permutation and addition give the full component formulas for any vector field. This derivation accounts for the varying coordinate basis without differentiating its unit vectors explicitly. The factors $h_i>0$ are scale factors of orthogonal coordinates; the chart must avoid coordinate singularities.