Customer Reviews

Chemical Engineering Fluid Mechanics

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

 

 

I have read the other reviews of this book and it is obvious there are conflicting feelings about the material contained in this book. I personally feel this book is a good quality and very useful to a practicing engineer. The book is sometimes a little unclear as to where some of the equations come from or how to read a diagram. I had the privledge of taking this class at Texas A&M from Dr. Ron Darby (the author). His teaching styles are 'old school' but very effective. He and his book make the student THINK about what the answer is. Having taken the class from Dr. Darby, I know clearly where all its equations come from and everything printed in the book is accurate. Dr. Ron Darby is an extremely competent individual and any reader who doesn't understand the book is probably looking for someone to give them the answer rather than think for themselves.

The course taught from this book was the most useful course I have taken. The book covers a wide range of topics including Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids and gases, pipes and fittings, pumps and compressors, meters and control valves, filters, centrifuges, settlers, etc. The book is clearly written and emphasizes the solution of practical fluids problems starting from first principles. There are many challenging problems which deal with "real world" situations - not the idealized or hypothetical problems you see in a lot of books. I use this book more on the job than any of the books that I had for courses in school. There were a few typos in the first printing, but these have been corrected in the later printings. I highly recommend the book for both students and practising engineers.

This book was not used in my undergraduate fluid mechanics course. Before starting my current job I realized that I was quite unprepared in this area so I bought this book for my own personal study. Since I began working as a process engineer it has proved to be the most useful text I own. Certainly there are better looking texts with pretty illustrations but that is not what makes a book most useful. The breadth and practicality of the material covered is exceptional. I've used this book as a reference for solving problems involving Newtonian and non-Newtonian internal flow, compressible flow, pump and compressor sizing, fluid-solid separation, and two-phase flow. Its early discussion of dimensional analysis I've also found very informative. If you want a book to slowly walk you through every step in deriving equations and formulating concepts this one may not be for you but if you want a book that will make you a more effective engineer I highly recommend this one.

Like many other reviewers I used this book for my introductory fluids class at A&M. I didn't take the class from Dr. Darby himself (although I did have him for seminar), so I didn't get the full Darby experience with this book. At the time I thought the book was just OK.

Fast forward ten years and this book has really increased in value for me. When confronted with highly non-newtonian fluids Dr. Darby's methods are earning praise on websites like eng-tips.com and are working well for my own non-newtonian fluids. I never thought I would do this, but I actually sprang for a copy of the second edition this year, even though I have my original 1st edition of the book on my shelf. The Darby 3 K method is worth it for the non-newtonian fluids. He also added pneumatic transfer, although this is similar to what is already available in Perry's. I haven't used the two-phase flow section yet, but I would expect that it is top-notch given Darby's association with the DIERS group.

Over all a useful book, especially if you are working with non-newtonian fluids.

I used the book for my introductory fluid mechanincs class, and my peers unanimously agreed that this book was the worst book they had ever used for a class. Equations come from nowhere, and practice problems appear before any discussion of material needed to solve them. There are no color diagrams, and the B&W ones that are there are are crude and confusing. The book is full of typographical errors. According to my professor for the class, although he didn't like this book either, it was better than the others available in this subject. I shudder to think that a book could be less useful than this one.