Fluid Mechanics

by Pijush K. Kundu, Ira M. Cohen

This is the most comprehensive introductory graduate or advanced undergraduate text in fluid mechanics available. It builds from the fundamentals, often in a very general way, to widespread applications to technology and geophysics. In most areas, an understanding of this book can be followed up by specialized monographs and the research literature.

The material added to this new edition will provide insights gathered over 45 years of studying fluid mechanics. Many of these insights, such as universal dimensionless similarity scaling for the laminar boundary layer equations, are available nowhere else. Likewise for the generalized vector field derivatives. Other material, such as the generalized stream function treatment, shows how stream functions may be used in three-dimensional flows. The CFD chapter enables computations of some simple flows and provides entrée to more advanced literature.

*New and generalized treatment of similar laminar boundary layers.
*Generalized treatment of streamfunctions for
three-dimensional flow .
*Generalized treatment of vector field derivatives.
*Expanded coverage of gas dynamics.
*New introduction to computational fluid dynamics.
*New generalized treatment of boundary conditions in fluid mechanics.
*Expanded treatment of viscous flow with more examples.

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

700 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