Basics of Fluid Mechanics - ver. 0.6.9.a

Reviewed by Nadim Zgheib, Assistant Professor, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on 3/3/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

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.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The text is generally accurate similar to classical fluid mechanics books usually taught at the undergraduate level. However, it appears to have more typos than your average intro to fluids books.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

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.

Clarity rating: 4

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.

Consistency rating: 4

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.

Modularity rating: 4

I found the delivery to be appropriately similar to other classical fluids courses at the undergraduate level.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

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.

Interface rating: 5

I did not identify and major issues.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

There are more grammatical errors than other books I have used.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This book is not culturally insensitive.

Comments

The book can be made more readable to undergrads and it should include more problems at the end of each chapter.

Reviewed by Lin Liu, Assistant Professor, University of Kansas on 11/15/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

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 of the book “Basics of Fluid Mechanics” seems inaccurate since many other concepts are not introduced (e.g., internal flow, external flow, laminar and turbulent flow, lift and drag, etc). The coming edits may cover above important and basic concepts, however, the update on the book stopped in 2013.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

Besides a few of missing symbols and inconsistencies in nomenclature, the book seems accurate.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The book is quite relevant to the field of fluid mechanics. Unfortunately, the book is a little bit outdated, which doesn’t contain recent development of fluid mechanics. Some important, basic concepts of fluid mechanics, such as micro/nano flows should be introduced to students.

Clarity rating: 3

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.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is pretty consistent except for some minor errors or typos.

Modularity rating: 5

The book is well organized.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Overall, the structure and flow seems fine. The author may want to keep working on the chapter of fluid statics.

Interface rating: 2

The interface needs to be improved to engage students more. Some of the figures are too small to read, such as Fig. 1.10.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

It seems fine, some minor errors or typos don’t cause significant confusion.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

N/A

Comments

I teach mechanics regularly, but I don’t have extensive research in fluid mechanics. I think the author did a great job to provide students with quick review of thermodynamics, mechanics, and appendix of mathematics for fluid mechanics. It could be more helpful to add more examples and end-of-section problems.

Reviewed by Mike Foster, Professor, George Fox University on 6/19/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

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 reviewer that the first few chapters are similar in their coverage, but key topics are missing. Boundary layers, laminar / turbulent / transitional flow, internal and pipe flow, external flow and flow over a flat plate, lift and drag, and open channel flow are not discussed. (In the Front Matter’s “To Do” section, the author indicates that some of these sections will be developed in the future.) In its overall tone and approach, I would say it is similar to the more technical, equation-based approach of Munson et al.

However, in the About the Book section, the author does indicate that the purpose behind this book was to prep students for his Compressible Flow book. “The topic of fluid mechanics was chosen just to fill the introduction chapter to compressible flow.” In this regard, the contents seem to fill the role for which it was designed.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

There were several typos throughout the text. Most the equations seemed correct. A LaTeX interpreter was used on all the pages, and some of the code wasn’t interpreted or a symbol/variable was missing.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

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.

Clarity rating: 2

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.

Consistency rating: 3

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.

Modularity rating: 4

The length of sections are typical for a textbook of this type. However, because of some of the derivations, most of the section could not be reorganized without confusing the reader.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The chapters were in an appropriate order as well as the sections. As for being clear, see my comments above on Clarity and Accuracy.

Interface rating: 3

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.

Grammatical Errors rating: 2

There were a multitude of grammar and spelling errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

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.

Comments

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.

Reviewed by Essam Ibrahim, Associate Professor, The University of Texas of the Permian Basin on 3/27/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

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 an index or glossary.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The book content appear to be accurate, error-free, and unbiased.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

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.

Clarity rating: 3

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.

Consistency rating: 5

The material in the book is presented in a consistent manner using internationally recognized units and terminology.

Modularity rating: 5

The book sections are concise and self contained. Advanced material is clearly identified.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The book is divided into chapters that are logically organized to gradually introduce the material required to understand subsequent chapters.

Interface rating: 5

The book doesn't suffer from any interface issues.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text is written in proper English with no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

There are no cultural issues in the book.

Comments

The book doesn't provide end-of-chapter or homework problems for students to practice solving problems on their own.

Reviewed by Liyong Sun, Assistant Professor, Penn State Erie on 2/1/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

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.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

The large amount of typos make it difficult to judge. Equation 2.38 only works for constant specific heat, which is not mentioned by the author.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

The book is not equipped with recent developments in this field. Undergraduate will have difficulty to go through this book.

Clarity rating: 2

Too many equations that are not clearly explained. Lots of grammar issues.

Consistency rating: 3

The unit of energy should be kJ instead of kj, which is used in this book.

Modularity rating: 4

The organization of the book is fine.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

The organization of the book is OK. More examples of introductory will help students to better understand the material.

Interface rating: 2

Lots of figures has small font size which make it difficult to read. Some equations do not have equation number assigned.

Grammatical Errors rating: 2

The unit in some tables are inconsistent. There are some grammar issues, for example, "un symmetrical" should be "unsymmetrical".

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Nothing of significance.

Reviewed by Celso Ferreira, Assistant Professor, George Mason University on 6/20/17

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

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 great. The index is easy to follow and directs the reader to the desired chapters.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I could not find any errors so far. I believe that once more professors/students start using the book we can provide a more comprehensive review on any typos or errors.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Yes, the content is up to date and the advantage is that fluid dynamics will be part of our engineering education for a long time.

Clarity rating: 3

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.

Consistency rating: 5

yes, the text is consistent

Modularity rating: 5

indeed, I think this is a strength of the book. See my comments on item 1. I actually intend to use parts of the book for my class on a related subject. Additional modules can be added over time.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

yes, the book is well organized and logical. Additional examples and figures would help to engage the students more, Especially in the introductory paragraphs.

Interface rating: 3

the interface is rather on the simple side. Which might be good to avoid distraction, however, additional figures and examples could engage the students a little more.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

I did not find any errors, however I did not perform an extensive grammar review

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

perfect

Comments

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.

Reviewed by Edgar Caraballo, Assistant Professor, Miami University on 6/20/17

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

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 internal and external flow, which are important applications for most engineers covering fluids.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The material presented seemed accurate, although there are some mistakes in some equations, specially in chapters 9 and 10.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The content on the book seems up to date, and will be applicable for a few years to come.

Clarity rating: 3

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.

Consistency rating: 5

The is consistency throughout the book

Modularity rating: 5

The text is well organized an could be used in a modular fashion.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

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.

Interface rating: 2

The online resource look decent, but not very attractive to the sight.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

There are some errors in the book, with missing word or unclear definitions or explanations. Having said that, the review by several people should help in the correction of the mistakes.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

N/A

Comments

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.

Reviewed by Kenneth Miller, Professor, St. Cloud State University on 4/11/17

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

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.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

There are a lot of inconsistencies in notation which make this hard to really judge. There were also a lot of typos.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

There were not many current or recent developments included. This made it particularly hard to engage the students. Recent issues such as micro-scale flow were missing and the examples were pretty much the same situations as I saw in my first fluid mechanics book.

Clarity rating: 1

This is probably the weakest aspect of the book. I had several students that had already taken their undergraduate fluids course read through it and all of them felt lost trying to follow it. The most common comment was that it looked like a huge list of equations with a little bit of explanation between them. Even the introduction, usually a pretty quick read, became very intimidating after the first three sections. It was almost impossible for them to follow.
Students usually struggle with the Reynolds Transport Theorem and differential analysis in my classes, and they commented that this book made them even more confusing.

Consistency rating: 2

There is little consistency in how things are presented. Reading through some chapters, it almost felt like there were missing sections.

Modularity rating: 4

This book does a pretty good job of keeping sections down to a reasonable length. The breakdown and length of chapters is reasonable.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

At the chapter level, it was good. Within the chapters, there were a lot of problems. Topics often seemed out of place, or referenced in examples before they are explained or introduced. The chapter on fluid statics was particularly troublesome from this aspect.

Interface rating: 3

Most of the figures were readable, but the overall quality seemed to diminish as the book went forward. They were also very inconsistent as if each were done by a different person with a different style. This made the book feel even more confusing to my students.

Grammatical Errors rating: 2

A lot of grammar and spelling problems. Very inconsistent with tenses and active / passive voice.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I saw nothing of significance here.

Comments

After reading through the book, I also read the review from Jiarong Hong and my observations and comments fall pretty closely in line with his. The book does not list any updates since his review.

Reviewed by Jiarong Hong, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota on 6/10/15

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

This book is intended to serve as an undergraduate textbook. Although it captures some core materials of fluid mechanics such as integral and differential analysis, it misses many important introductory concepts and materials that are suitable for undergraduate level and that are often emphasized in many other standard textbooks. The important materials that are missing include thorough discussions on Lagrangian and Eulerian perspectives, Bernoulli equation, pipe flows, detailed discussion on boundary layer, Drag and Lift, and the concept of laminar and turbulent flows, etc. Specifically, there are only 2-3 paragraphs that introduce Lagrangian and Eulerian perspective very briefly. There is no discussion on laminar to turbulence transition, the classical flows over a flat plate and fully-developed pipe flows including famous Moody chart. There is very little discussion on Bernoulli equation, which is probably the most memorable element in the fluid mechanics for the undergraduates. These missing materials are extremely important because: (1) they reflect the unique nature of fluids; (2) they can be easily appreciated by undergraduates; (3) they are widely used in many engineering applications. Instead of focusing on these basic elements, the book introduces many materials that are rarely-seen from standard textbooks (e.g. Pushka equations and Nusselt’s methods) and that are mathematically complex, which cannot be easily absorbed by undergraduates. The solutions for many example problems are incomplete, many of which the author did not put numerical values and just left the equations with "=". This book does not have any exercise problems for the students. However, it is meritorious that the book contains a chapter that reviews the classical mechanics and an appendix that summarizes the mathematics for fluid mechanics, which are very useful review materials for undergraduates to get ready for fluid mechanics.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

Considering the fact that this book contains so many grammar errors and inconsistencies, I am skeptical on the accuracy of some of materials that presented in this book. One example is on the discussion of surface tension. The book criticizes the explanation of surface tension from many other textbooks. First of all, the book failed to provide a clear microscopic explanation of surface tension by itself. Second, I feel this book might misunderstand the usage of “imbalance” from some of standard textbooks (I did not check every single one of them). The second example is that this book has a long discussion on Nusselt’s technique in the chapter of dimensional analysis. The material is not included in any textbooks of fluid mechanics that I have seen before. I also did some search on google scholar, and I didn’t find much information related to the derivation and applications of this technique. So I don’t know whether this material has been well-accepted and justified by the fluid community.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

This book does not contain any most recent development in the field of fluid mechanics. Many subject index and author index provided at the end of book need to be updated. I don't know what mechanism that author used to update this book. In my opinion, there are plenty of improvements needed. The author does not seem to have an efficient way to manage the updates. I noticed some inconsistencies resulting from the different updates.

Clarity rating: 2

The clarity of the text is significantly hampered by the grammar errors, poorly-written sentences and inconsistencies, which is largely caused by the fact that English is only the third language of this author. The clarity of this book is also affected by the organization of materials, e.g. many technical terms are used before they are officially introduced (or some of them are not even introduced in this book).

Consistency rating: 2

My comment is based on the pdf version in July, 2013. There are some inconsistencies in the usage of terminology and framework. internally. Some portions do not seem to be completed. Some subjects laid out in Fig1.1 are not presented in this book.

Modularity rating: 3

The modularity of this book seems to be fine. There are clear divisions of sections and subsections.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

The general organization of the materials seems to be fine. However, when it comes to down more detailed knowledge, the book is not well organized. For example, the Bulk Modulus is presented even before the concept of Bulk Modulus is introduced. Some advanced subjects are introduced way before the readers have adequate exposure on the basics of fluid mechanics. Different types of instability are mentioned in different places. The discussions on surface tension appear in different sections. In addition, there is a lack of overview or summary sentences that highlights the key messages from each and multiple subsections. In many chapters, the transition from section to section is abrupt.

Interface rating: 1

The quality of many figures do not fit textbook standards. It is impossible to see the labels in some of the figures because of the low quality of images or the tiny font sizes (e.g. Figure 1.6, 1.7 and many others). Some of the figures are poorly-made and quite confusing. There are also some inconsistencies in the layout of the different sections.

Grammatical Errors rating: 1

This book is full of conspicuous grammar errors including wrong spelling ("et al" was written as "at el", “pul” of “pull”, etc.), the misuse of tenses and active/passive voices, erroneous forms of verbs and improper prepositions, etc. I can easily find a sentence with 2-3 spelling errors. A portion of sentences are not well written and do not a good readability. This is understandable since the English is only the third language of the author. However, it is evident that little time and attention have been paid to proofread this book, and to polish each sentence and the organization of sentences. For this book to become a textbook for English-speaking readers, significant improvement is needed on the writing.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I did not find anything that was culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.