Customer Reviews

An Album of Fluid Motion

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Anyone studying fluid mechanics should have a look at this book of visualized experimental results. The photography is excellent, the reproduction quality is superb and the explanations in the text are clear and thought-provoking. When taking your first courses in fluid mechanics, it is very worth having Van Dyke's Album of Fluid Motion around, to jog your intuition, motivate your studies and -- most importantly -- keep alive your sense of wonder.

this album is a must for any scientist or engineer who wants to visualize fluid motion and understand the dependence of flow type upon physical variables. for example, there is a series of photos of spheres towed at a broad range of Reynolds numbers, which depend upon tow speed and viscosity (as well as sphere diameter). Markers in the fluid allow the reader to view the circulation at the various Renolds numbers and get a feel for the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. Several of the photos are classics.

I bought this book about twenty years ago, and getting hold of it then was a nightmare. Peter Bradshaw (then at Imperial, before he moved to Stanford) had it at the top of his recommended reading list, and none of us realised that Milton van Dyke was printing it himself from his garage. Peter was absolutely right though. I cannot remember how many times I have had recourse to this to understand a facet of a particular flow or explain it to someone else. This is even more important in these days, as fewer and fewer students are being exposed to experimental flow visualisation techniques. If you can get this book here do it, you won't regret it.

This is a great book for all instructors teaching fluid mechanics or CFD. My students were really excited on seeing those beautiful pictures. This book can be an excellent incentive for the CFD students to simulate those flows.

Mostly pictures, black and white, but it shows how fluid and air flows in the real world. A great help for explaining various fluid dynamic phenomena to anyone.

I love this book. Whether you are an aerospace engineer or if you simply are amazed when you see flows, this book is a must-have. It covers all kind of flows with very neat pictures and good explanation of what is going on.
I also had a few professors using this book during a fluid dynamics class, and it make things way more interesting.

I am an 'artsy' mechanical engineering student and find that the lovely pictures in this book are helping me to stay inspired while also building physical intuition.