Introduction to Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics

My goal in this book is to provide a comprehensive and rigorous introduction to the fundamental concepts and basic equations of fluid dynamics and, furthermore, to illustrate the application of numerical methods for solving fundamental and practical problems that involve the flow of incompressible Newtonian fluids. The material is intended to be useful and interesting to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers in the various fields of engineering, including chemical, mechanical, and aerospace engineering, applied mathematics, computational science, and other related disciplines. Prerequisites are a basic knowledge of continuum mechanics, intermediate calculus, elementary numerical methods, and a general familiarity with computer programming. The various chapters can be read either as a whole or in pat1s, according to the reader's experience and needs, and the presentation is designed to be useful as a ready reference. What distinguishes this book from other texts on theoretical fluid dynamics is that the discussion is taken into the realm of numerical methods and includes the development of specific algorithms for computing a variety of flows of incompressible fluids under diverse conditions. On the other hand, what distinguishes this book from a standard book on computational fluid dynamics is that a full account of the theory is provided with a minimal amount of external references, and no experience in computational fluid dynamics or knowledge of its terminology is assumed. Furthermore, an effort is made to present state-of-the-art numerical methods and computational strategies, and references for specialized and advanced topics are provided.