Customer Reviews

Open-Channel Hydraulics

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A professor teaching my Open Channel Flow class stated that this book is widely regarded as "The Bible" of open channel hydraulics. After reviewing a library copy, I was so impressed with it that I bought one for myself. The text is written in a clear, concise language that is sorely lacking in other texts. His chapter on energy and momentum principles is especially good. Sure, it's an old text (1959) but 98% of this book is still relevant. There's a reason it still in print; engineers love it and continue to buy it!

Incidentally, I found the review of this book by Hubert Chanson to be at best, disingenuous. He rates the book with only one star (every other reviewer gave it 5 stars) while at the same time recommending a "better" text that he fails to mention he authored and is out of print! There's one in every crowd.

In the fall semester of 1980, I sat a class in the civil engineering department of the University of Missouri--Rolla on open channel hydraulics. The instructor used Chow's Open-Channel Hydraulics as the text. I was a dual-enrolled senior at the time and this course counted toward my graduate degree.

If it's possible to fall in love with an engineering textbook, I did -- with this one. I spent a lot of time with the text, both as a student, then later as a professional, then later yet as a teacher of young civil engineers. This has to be one of the best-written textbooks I've owned, ever. The writing is clear, lucid, and precise. Chow really knew his open channels, and it shows.

The text is clearly dated, hence the "classic reissues" monogram. The text contains material that is no longer useful, except in a historic sense. Much of the material presented on backwater-curve analysis is no longer used. Our computers are adept at applying the direct-step and standard-step methods (both topics are well-treated in the text), so the hand-computation methods are outdated. Furthermore, the technologies presented in the chapters describing unsteady flow in open channels are also dated because we have numerical computation methods more sophisticated than those available in the late 1950's.

Those topics are NOT what makes this an excellent textbook. It is the clear descriptions and derivations of fundamental principles that make Chow a classic. That material is timeless and remains the emphasis of my personal teaching of young engineers. Technologies change; fundamentals do not. For that reason alone I continue to use and recommend Chow's Open-Channel Hydraulics to my students and colleagues.

If I could have only one reference on open channels, this would be it. It is the book I return to and refer to whenever I need to know something about fundamental open channels. When I need newer technology, I go to the journal literature. But when I need to teach or review the fundamentals, I pick up my copy of Chow.

I want to affirm the comments of another reviewer that Chanson's review is subject to bias--he is the author of another open-channels text.

This is the foundational text of modern open-channel hydraulics. All engineers should have a copy. The only negative review on this page (or that I have ever heard) is by an author (Hubert Chanson) of books which compete with this one.

this book is completely necessary to the ones that want to learn, to teach and mostly to work with water and fluids at all.

This is superb text, a standard for over 40 years and for justcause. The explanations are clear and easy to understand--providingexplanation of theory, for example momentum versus energy and confusion between the two.

This book is really comprehensive of the terms normally used in Open Channel Hydraulics and has special chapters for more complex issues. It's strongly necessary in all Civil Engineer library

I am a grad student in hydraulic engineering at LSU, currently borrowing a copy of this book from my advisor while he is on sabbatical. It is incredible. I wish I could afford to buy even a very old used copy of this text.

McGraw-Hill should seriously consider printing this title again.

Words are meaningless to Professor Dr. Ven Te Chow, as he is the best by far, in his field of knowledge. This book is highly recommended. truly, the very first to grab.

This is not a book for novices of fluid mechanics. The example problems are very vague on the applications of the theorems introduced in the book. I found this to be more of a reference handbook for experienced individuals.

The book had been a solid handbook for hydraulic engineers, although it was never an easy book for students. As an experienced lecturer, I feel that Chow's book is everything but pedagogic. I would not recommend it to young professionals and students.

Further it has become outdated with the years. For example, the section on spilwlays (Part IV) is no longer the state of the art. The material is also presented in imperial units. In my opinion, a number of very good books are now on the market and they fullfil the needs of professionals and students. For example the "Hydraulics of Open Channel Flow", ASCE Publ. is a solid reference, while "The Hydraulics of Open Channel Flow: an Introduction", Butterworth-Heinemann, is a very good student text.

I am very surprised by some reviews that forgot the age and deficiencies of the book.