Customer Reviews

Open Channel Hydraulics

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

 

 

For a start, there are certain things I always look for in a textbook. I like to learn both the theory and the application. I like to know how to apply what I learn to a real life setting - which I believe is the sole purpose of any textbook.

Terry Sturm's book fulfills the first part very well - his theoretical overview and insights into open channel flow equations are fantastical. We have integrations, advanced formulae, control volume diagrams and definition of equations. Linear momentum, vector sum of forces blah blah blah.

What we don't have however, are explanations of what everything means (which I suspect is left up to the Professor of the Day, which in my case is a blathering old fogey). It's just regurgitated facts. After the end of an oversaturated chapter, guess what. You don't get examples, instead you get a whole set of problems (with no solutions) - which you are expected to solve by deriving some other equation from the already extensive list of textbook equations. Makes sense? I think not.

Unless you come into the field of open channel hydraulics with a foreknowledge of fundamentals, don't expect anything to make any sense. That plus the outrageous price of the book makes me want to return this.

I had to add my review after seeing this book's 4-star rating.

The three 5-star reviews here are bogus (his kid). The 4-star review was a mistake.

This book is so utterly horribly written that I wanted to vomit each time I tried to wade through a paragraph. It seems the author convolutes everything in an attempt to fluff up the length of the book. Something that can be stated in a sentence is convoluted into an entire paragraph. It's not only difficult to wade through, it's nauseating. Its 'conversational' narrative (apparently another fluff strategy) is inapropiate for this type of book. The author makes use of many references, in every single paragraph, and spells them all out over and over again. Apparently this was another fluff strategy, and probably adds another 10% to book length.

Not including some answers to the end-of-chapter problems is UNFORGIVABLE. And I'm surprised he didn't take this opportunity to fluff up his book a little more. (oh yeah, the answer index might not have contributed to the official page count)

The text was ok except for the fact that the chapter problems did not include any illustrations. A lot of time the students had to guess at exactly what Sturm meant. Towards the end of the course it became routine for us to work the problem first and then check in the teacher's key to make sure that we set it up the way Sturm meant for us to. The class was made of seniors and graduate students.

Another problem is that often the student had to infer how Sturm wanted the reader to use the numerous charts based on empirical data. Sturm wasn't always explicit and that caused problems in getting correct values off them.

To be fair, this is a first edition and there are bound to be errors. Hopefully, the next edition is better. My professor loved this book stating that "Sturm gets to the point." He used Chow and Henderson's texts to supplement this book which helped a lot. There were computer programs and examples of their use in the book which I enjoyed and will prove useful to me in the future.

I rarely write these reviews. But this is a truly terrible book. Very few worked examples and no answeres to odd or even problems. Several of the problems at the end of chapters are not easily solved based on the information (often cursory) provided in the text. This is a poor learning tool for introductions to open channel hydraulics and design. I have a 4.0 GPA, I will make it throught this course, but this text stands alone as possibly the worst I have ever used.

It was a text-book for one the my classes. It can be a very good reference book in Hydraulics for practicing water engineers.

In a world where engineering texts burn one's eyes like a Saharan sandstorm, Sturm's Open Channel Hydraulics provides rivers of soothing relief. Concise, to the point, and utterly compelling, it stands as a towering example of an engineer in full command of his prodigous talent. Read it and be powerfully enlightened.

Received the book that i bought in 1.5 weeks and with no hassels.

This is a dam good book. For those aficionados of hydraulics (such as myself), this book is liberating. Masterful work!

This is the best book of its kind. Terry Sturm is a true engineering genius. Bravo!!