Customer Reviews

Introduction to Fluid Mechanics

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

After reading a few chapters from this book and compared it to other Fluid Mech books like Frank M. White's Fluid Mechanics and Fundamental of Fluid Mechanics by Munson, Young & Okiishi, I would say this book doesn't provide enough explanation to the various topics in Fluid Mechanics which the other authors did.
If you are the type who prefers to read something lighter, this book will be suitable for you. But for those who prefer to read up & learn more about Fluid Mechanics, Frank White will be a better choice although beginners who are new to Fluid Mech will find White's book a bit hard to understand.
Personally, I would say the best Fluid Book i have ever read will be Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics by Young, Munson & Okiisi. Please refer to the review of that book for more info

I used this book for a fluid mech course and I thought this book is terrible. The derivations of the equations are thorough but that doesn't make up for what this book lacks. The problems are quite difficult since the material covered in the chapters doesn't match what the questions ask. I don't expect a textbook to entertain me but this one put me to sleep a lot. There are (literally) hundreds of references to video clips demonstrating different topics covered but they weren't put on the included CD. And speaking of the CD, it is completely worthless. Don't even bother wasting your time looking at it since it contains very little useful information. There are a few more detailed explanations of a few of the topics in a few chapters but that is it. There is no real meat there. I gave this book 2 stars only because I did like the thoroughness of the derivations other than that this book is a waste of your time and money. And if one opinion may not count out of a class of 35 about half of us hated the book (it was doubtful the other half had even read it). If you have to use this book, good luck.

I feel that this book is indeed a nice looking book, and also has fairly good content. It is true that a student should have a fairly good grasp of The Calculus and Differential Equations, but most students will already have such knowledge by the time they take this class. I feel it is a positive that the authors did not feel obliged to explain the small mathematical details necessary for each example since to do that would have weighed the book down with unnecessary redundant information. The authors realized that if a student needs to find out the mathematics necessary for an equation, they can reference back to their other textbooks as necessary. I will keep this book on the shelf in my office after I graduate.

I am a student at the University of California with a 4.0 GPA. As a major in Mechanical Engineering, I am obligated to take at least one course in Fluid Mechanics. From my perspective this book is a worthless tool. The derivations are hard to follow, and the problems do not reflect the material covered in the text, making them quite difficult to solve. Realizing that this is a difficult subject to master, by use of this book it becomes even harder. Just about the best feature of this book is the "neat" picture on the cover.

IF YOU ARE AN INSTRUCTOR, PLEASE, FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR STUDENTS, DO NOT USE THIS TEXT.

It's one thing for an experienced person in the discipline of Fluid Mechanics to follow this text, but from a first time student's seat, this book is among the WORST books I've ever had to use.

Please take my warning seriously.

EDIT (2003): I still maintain that this was one of the worst books in my entire college career. All the above reviews that criticized ME as opposed to my review or the text (i.e. "4.0 boy", "poor foundation in math" [right, those make sense together]) have background in the subject, whereas this text is meant for a first course. In retrospect, I can use it as a refrence, but at the time it was supposed to teach me, it was complete garbage. Right now I have 8 "helpful" reviews, and if those 8 were prof's or instructors, then that's about 480 students that are better off. I even got an email from one that said he wouldn't use the text, and asked if I had seen a better one. I suspect a couple of the "not helpful" reviews are from my fans above, who may or may not be affiliated with the author or publisher.

This textbook, is horribly written. It is does not explain concepts and examples in a sequential manner. Would not recommend this book for understanding fluid mechanics.

I found hard time in finding good books to understand fluid. However, Fox and McDonald manage to explain fluid in more student-approached method. A lot of worked-out examples will make the concepts easy to digest.

Another good books : Engineering Fluid Mechanics by Roberson and Crowe Books to avoid : Fluid Mechanics by Streeter

I used this book as an undergrad and found the many examples very helpful in doing the homework problems. I still refer to this textbook quite often as an aeronautical engineer. If you've had a few math courses it isn't too challenging. It is a very good explanation of the basics!

This book goes a long way to describe the most simple concepts in a confusing way. I ended up learning from a different text book. If your university uses this book, it is probably a good idea to take this course somewhere else. This book assumes that you have already taken dynamics and thermodynamics! The problems are not clearly written, so trying to understand the question is often more time consuming than finding the solution.

Although in my class we did not go through too many of the chapters I found it fairly easy to follow and if you have a strong interest in fluids this would be a great book.

For those who don't have a strong interest in fluids you may find this to be a bit boring. i didn't find it keeping my interest, I was bored almost every time I opened it.

This book is good at the respeact that it has a variety amount of problem of each type that the author WANT students to solve.

The above is the positive side. But in the negative respect:

1) This book doesn't have enough samples to help the students the grasp on the correct idea, maybe he should add an extra one or two samples into each applicable section of the chapters. (The author sometimes expect us to get all different types of problems by only explaining one type of problems, which left us in blank in approaching other types of problems.)

2) The author has a hard time formating the paragraphs to make it readable.(It is word heavy in some sections that makes me stop reading. In addition, it is too verbose in some parts, and it is not having enough detail in some other parts.)

3) The problem picturs and wording are often confusing. (He should clear up some of the pictures and word. ie. some pictures are supposed to have a nozzle, but it doesn't, some picture's dimension is supposed to be as same as the others, but it doesn't look like it. We have to make the correct kind of ASSUMPTIONS(mistakes/unclarity) in order the get the solution)

4)Not enough "cover page stuff", a lot of times i have to look for a certain convertion/constant in order to complete the problem.

5) WE are ASSUMED to know all the convertion from all the different kind of unit system. (ie. WHAT is degree R, and how do you convert it to degree C? How do you convert Btu to another system?)(He needs to have more explaination on that.

That is the stuff i hate about this book so far.I think this book has some great materials, but he just need to present it better! By considering this is my first fluid book, i don't know what is in the others, so i'm not giving it a one instead.