Fluid Mechanics Books

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Roshan Fried

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Aug 5, 2024, 6:44:08 AM8/5/24

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Iam interested in studying fluid dynamics and am searching for a good introductory textbook. I know just the very basics of fluids on the physics side. For mathematical prerequisites, I have completed a course on integration theory, and have a basic understanding of functional analysis and PDE, though by no means am I an expert.

I have done some searching online and most of the books I have come across lean more towards physics, numerical methods, and/or mathematical modeling. What I am instead looking for is something that is more mathematical and analysis/PDE oriented (and ideally one that does not assume too much of this material and introduces it as necessary), targeted towards early graduate students in mathematics. A good example of what I would like are Professor Tao's lecture notes.

The book covers practically all fluid mechanics topics of interest for an undergraduate course. These include fluid statics (buoyancy, stability, surface tension), integral analysis including conservation of mass, momentum, and energy (including Bernoulli's equation), differential analysis with Navier-Stokes equations, internal (viscous pipe flow), and external flows, as well as similarity analysis. The book also covers compressible flow, and other topics that are usually covered as technical electives or in a graduate level fluids course. A main issue however is the lack of sufficient problems to solve. There are only a few problems for each chapter.

This is a classical fluid mechanics book. The content has been around for decades and centuries, and as such the issue of material becoming obsolete does not apply for this introductory fluid mechanics book.

I find the book can be hard to read for a typical undergraduate fluid mechanics student. The topics are very appropriate for an undergraduate course, but the delivery is more appropriate for a graduate level student as it is math heavy.

I could not identify any major issues with consistency. However symbols referring to the same variable can take on different forms, which is not ideal. For example g in mathscript and non-mathscript forms.

The book starts with an introductory chapter to fluid mechanics, then jumps to fluid statics, integral analysis, differential analysis, dimensional analysis, ... I find this organization to be suitable. At any rate, instructors do not necessarily follow the same layout as the book.

This book covers many basic and important concepts of fluid mechanics, such as fluid statics, potential flow, compressible flows in one-dimensional and two-dimensional, and multi-phase flow. They are adequate for an entry-level course. The title...read more

The book is somehow confusing, especially in equations. All terminologies should be properly introduced. Some most important dimensionless number, such as Reynolds number, should be introduced earlier in the book.

There only seemed to be an online version to review.If I compare this book against introductory undergraduate Fluid Mechanics texts such as Munson et al., Cengel and Cimbala, and Crowe et al., it is not comprehensive. I agree with a previous...read more

As mentioned in the Comprehensiveness section, the first few topics of typical introductory textbooks very briefly introduced and then derivations commence. The relevance/case studies that typical texts provide are not present. The author does move into gas dynamics and multiphase flow (which has a much more thorough introduction than most of the chapters.

I echo a previous reviewer that undergraduate students learning Fluid Mechanics for the first time would most likely be intimidated by the presentation of this book. The lack of analogies to common experiences or case studies of recent or historical events does not seem to engage the reader.

The RTT sections (Mass, Momentum, and Energy) seemed to be a great opportunity for the author to provide the reader with a consistent approach to the respective derivations. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Other sections seem relatively consistent in their approach.

There were several figures where the font size for the axes titles was very small to the point of being unreadable. Plots were inconsistent in their formatting throughout. Parts of equations and citation were not interpreted correctly. The lack of white space also made the material feel overwhelming.

Since the presentation was heavily equation/derivation based and analogies to common experiences or case studies of recent or historical events were not included, the presentation is relatively neutral toward cultural relevance.

In the "About the Book" section, the author makes some bold statements: "In writing the chapter on fluid statics, there was a realization that it is the best chapter written on this topic." "With all the above, it must be emphasized that this book is not expected to revolutionize the field but change some of the way things are taught."

I appreciate the author's confidence and there might be some truth of the second statement in his overall approach of reaching back to thermodynamics and then continuing beyond to multiphase flows. Unfortunately, the bridge between these areas is weak, though, with time and continued revisions, the author may develop the text to a point for larger consumption.

This book covers most of the basic material of an introductory course in fluid mechanics. However, some important topics such as vapor pressure, laminar and turbulent flow, and Buckingham Pi Theorem are not covered. Also, the book doesn't provide...read more

As in most fluid mechanics books, the material in this book is essential to any basic fluid mechanics course. Thus the book content is not expected to become obsolete anytime soon. However, the book could be enhanced by adding some examples of contemporary applications of fluid mechanics.

The clarity of the book material is enhanced by the many colored graphics included in the book. However, some of the book material require a level of mathematics that may not be entirely mastered by sophomore or junior undergraduate engineering students.

This book covers fluid mechanics with a review of thermodynamics and mechanics. Bernoulli's equation is derived without any examples to apply it. Also head loss, internal flow and external flow are not covered in this book. Surprisingly, the most important dimensionless number, Reynolds number finally showed up in Chapter 9. The concept of laminar and turbulent flows are not discussed.

The text provides a great initial open source documentation for fluid mechanics. I would like to take advantage of this book for my hydraulics and water resources engineering classes. For my classes, the control volume and dimensional analyses are...read more

yes, the text flows well. However, a little more spacing would benefit the transition from text to equations and figures. It feels a little cramped as is. Maybe just adding a couple of blank lines would already help.

Great addition to the open text book library. I will certainly use portion of it for my upcoming classes. I look forward to additions on hydraulics to the contents. Hopefully exercises would also be added in the future.

The material cover in the book is a mixture of a basic fluid course, with a good review of thermodynamics and mechanics, with some higher level topics in fluids such as compressible flow and potential flow chapters. However, it ignores complete...read more

Although most of the text was well written, there are a few parts where it was unclear what the author was trying to explain. It could be just typo, but at time it looked like the explanation didn't make sense.

The book is well organized, and presented in a clean fashion. I'm not sure that the review of thermodynamics and mechanics are required or in the appropriate place, but they are independent and clearly marked.

Most of the material is presented in a clear manner, the book itself cannot be described as a basic course in fluids, as is missing some topics and expands too much in some advance ones. Another potential issue is the lack of practice problems in every chapter. It would have been good for the book to the some resources in this area. I could see myself using some of the content as support material, but I would not use this book as my primary source.

I am looking at this as a first textbook in fluid mechanics for undergraduate engineering students. While it covers most of the normal topics, there are a few significant omissions. In particular, boundary layers, laminar / turbulent / transitional flow, open flow (flat plate), pipe flow, lift, and drag. These are very important topics omissions for an undergraduate course, yet it does go into compressible flow and multiphase flow which are not usually covered in the first semester of fluid mechanics.