Description
Mathematical physics was brought into existence by the development of mechanics. It originated in the study of the planetary motions and of the falling of heavy bodies, which led Newton to formulate the fundamental laws of mechanics, as early as 1687. Even though the mechanics of continuous media, first as solid mechanics, and later as fluid mechanics, is a more recent development, its roots can be found in Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), several pages of which are dedicated to the falling streams of liquid.
Applications of fluid mechanics to irrigation problems date back to Antiquity, but the subject gained a key status during the industrial revolution. Energetics was vital to the development of knowledge-demanding, specialized industrial areas such as fluid supply, heat engineering, secondary energy production or propulsion. Either as a carrier of sensible heat or as the core of energy production processes, fluid is ubiquitous in all the high-technology industries of the century: aeronautics, aerospace, automotive, industrial combustion, thermal or hydroelectric power plants, processing industries, national defense, thermal and acoustic environment, etc.
Depending on the target audience, there are various approaches to fluid mechanics. Covering this diversity is what we are striving for in this book. Whatever the degree of difficulty of the approached subject, it is important for the reader to reflect on it while being fully aware of the laws to be written in one form or another. Various approaches to fluid mechanics are illustrated by examples in this book.
First of all, the student will have the opportunity to handle simplified tools, providing him/her with a convenient first approach of the subject. On the other hand, the practitioner will be provided with elementary dimensioning means
Other problems may justify or require a more complex approach, involving more significant theoretical knowledge, in particular of calculus. This is once again a point on which students and practitioners who already master these subjects can converge.
A third approach, which is essential for today’s physics, especially when dealing with problems that are too complex to be accurately solved by simple calculations, resorts to numerical methods. This book illustrates these remarks.
Problem resolution relies in each chapter on reviews of fundamental notions. These reviews are not exhaustive, and the reader may find it useful to go back to textbooks for knowledge consolidation. Nevertheless, certain proofs referring to important points are resumed. As already mentioned, what matters is that the reader has a good grasp of what he/she writes.
Given that we target wide audiences, the deduction or review of general equations can be found in the appendices, to avoid the book becoming too cumbersome.
The attempt to effectively address audiences with widely varied levels of knowledge, expertise or experience in the field may seem an impossible task.
Drawing on their experience of teaching all these categories of audiences, the authors felt motivated and encouraged to engage in this daring enterprise.