Fluid Mechanics

by Pijush K. Kundu, Ira M. Cohen

Fluid Mechanics, Fourth Edition, is a basic yet comprehensive introductory text on the fundamentals of fluid mechanics and applications in engineering and science. It guides students from the fundamentals to the analysis and application of fluid mechanics, including compressible flow and such diverse applications as hydraulics and aerodynamics. This new edition contains updates to several chapters and sections, including Boundary Layers, Turbulence, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Thermodynamics and Compressibility. It includes a new chapter on Biofluid Mechanics by Professor Portonovo Ayyaswamy, the Asa Whitney Professor of Dynamical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. It provides additional worked-out examples and end-of-chapter problems. The book is recommended for senior undergraduate/graduate students in mechanical, civil, aerospace, chemical and biomedical engineering; physics, chemistry, meteorology, geophysics, and applied mathematics.

Genres: Physics, Science, Reference, Technical, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Engineering

904 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1990

Reviews

[Mason · Rating 1 out of 5]

Caveats to this review: I only read chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, & 14 as was required for my grad school advanced fluids class. The homework assignments for this class were composed entirely of problems from the exercises section at the end of each of these chapters, so my thoughts on the book are also based on my experience with these problems. This book was clearly written with the expectation that the audience has a very strong foundation in linear algebra, multivariable calculus, and differential equations. I was quite rusty with these skills as it has been about 6 years since I took these classes in undergrad; and even though this was my fourth semester in grad school, my previous grad classes have not been as math intensive. The book also uses a lot of Einstein summation convention which I did not use in undergrad.

This book may be a useful reference for experienced fluid dynamicists. However, as a learning tool, I found it to be one of the worst textbooks I have ever read. The book is generally lacking in examples and visual representations of concepts. It skips countless steps and draws conclusions that are not sufficiently well supported for a work of technical writing, in my opinion. The writing feels clunky and disorganized, lacking a clear logical flow in many sections. The exercise problems frequently refer to terms that have not been previously introduced in the textbook (I checked because I have the pdf version). In some cases both within the contents of the chapters and between the contents and the exercises, different names are used for the same concepts without any explanation (examples: taylor microscale / taylor time scale & power spectrum / energy spectrum). I had to rely heavily on other resources including some of my undergrad textbooks to explain the same concepts this textbook attempted to convey. In summary: My opinion of this book is potentially biased by my rusty math skills, yet even when trying to not consider my own struggles with content, I found it to be an exceptionally poor piece of technical writing.

[Dani Hibatullah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is super lazy with derivations

[Brendan]

This is a very physical book. Accompany it with Munson's Fluid mechanics for more examples and you will be in good shape.

[Prem Ojha]

i feel happy