Customer Reviews

A Brief Introduction to Fluid Mechanics (Wiley Custom Select)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Unless you're beaucoup crazy about fluids, I doubt you'll have any pleasure owning this book. Anything that says "brief" in the title is cause to be weary. Would be easier with better diagrams.

No single textbook is perfect, but the previous claims that this book is "useless" and "does not explain anything" are absolutely ridiculous. Numerous example problems are provided, usually at least one for each section, which I believe do a great job of detailing how to apply the various equations presented in those sections. More importantly, the example and back-of-the-book problems are actually PRACTICAL. The authors also include interesting short stories about fluid phenomena in the real world ("Fluids in the News") which help keep your interest in the subject material. The prose is concise and not overly verbose. The figures and diagrams provided throughout the text are very clear and descriptive; dimensions are clearly written, vectors and the corresponding coordinate systems are neatly superimposed onto the object/structure/conduit under consideration, control volumes are highlighted, and the notation of variables is kept consistent. While I'm no fluids expert, I have perused quite a few fluids textbooks, and the illustrations here honestly blow away the ones provided in even more advanced fluids texts (especially the ones I've seen more oriented towards chemical engineering students, aka transport phenomena). The only thing I'm not crazy about is the recurring red color theme.

This was a required book for me. Nothing is really explained, and the examples aren't thorough enough to handle all applications. I basically only used the appendices of this book to reference constants and conversion factors. This is a waste of money.

This book is required for fluid mechanics at Missouri S&T. The book does a terrible job at explaining or showing how to solve problems. In fact, the professor recommends any edition because the only thing we use it for is the tables in the back. If we were smarter at the beginning of the semester, we just would have just photocopied the tables from one person's book.
There is not a single person I have heard that has said the book was okay. Everyone just talks about how if you have questions, better not open the book because it won't help.