Part 2

Essential Fluids With MATLAB and Octave - Part 2 (Applications)

One important takeaway from Part 1 is that Fluid Mechanics is a difficult field. I will start with an important question

Why Part 1 and Part 2?

Why not release the complete book

Essential Fluids With MATLAB and Octave

In my mind the complete book should include the ability to understand and define problems in fluid mechanics and obtain its solution. This should enable someone to develop fluid systems that address a real need. The introductory book above establishes that it will not happen through a single book. In addition, fluids have a wide range of properties. They can be gas or liquid or molten solid. They can move lethargically or travel at the speed of sound. They can be composed of single elements or a mixture. The elements of a mixture can interact independently or develop new composite properties. In addition the operating environment could also evolve. A lot of these interactions and reactions are not understood, leave alone their translation into a suitable numerical model that is part of the numerical techniques incorporating the natural laws. A lot of the above material is not part of an introductory book. Part 1 has taken four years to write (originally scheduled for three). The additional material will take more than two years with relatively limited impact.

Current fluid systems are designed using numerical simulation. This simulation is relatively recent riding on the rapid development of hardware and software systems. In fact the development of the super computer was driven by the need to solve fluid mechanics problems. Nevertheless, fluid systems were designed and developed before the advent of computing. It was through a combination of simple models that included many parameters. These parameters were determined using experimental data. The Wright brothers use a simple wind tunnel to determine the final shape of their wing. At that time there was no analytical way to determine the performance of their design. At that time it was difficult to determine drag in a flow as the idea of boundary layer was still unknown.

All basic fluid mechanics textbooks include design and applications based on simple parameterized models that only require application of algebra. There are no differential equations to solve. All of these input/output models are infused with parameters that are read off charts or interpolated from tables. Several of these charts are available as formulas so the information can be easily computed instead of physically being looked up. All of these suggest that there is a robust database of tables and charts. This collection is usually included as an appendix in most textbooks. To access the curated database involves permissions and maybe royalty payments.

My books in this series are available as ebooks and they are free to download. They are self published. I do not have the resources to acquire these databases if there is a cost. Their inclusion within the book will increase the length of the book and will increase the time of release significantly without proportional increase in utility. I want to provide a different pedagogy for fundamental courses in engineering education, in this case - fluid mechanics. This compels me to release the book in two parts.

Essential Fluids With MATLAB and Octave - Part 1 (Theory)

Essential Fluids With MATLAB and Octave - Part 2 (Applications)

The second part of the book will include many of the topics found in most textbooks and also be integrated with computation wherever possible. They will be based on databases that are free and which can be linked, as in the case of Part 1 of the book. I will mostly rely on Wikimedia commons, national lab databases, or free university databases. It will be unfortunately limited by my search creativity and knowledge of availability. I have yet to work on an approach for Part 2. I will do so after releasing Part 1. I welcome feedback on Part 1 and any suggestions for materials to be included in Part 2.

At the current time I plan to include the following but it is likely the actual book may evolve differently.

1. Dimensional Analysis

2. Viscous Flow: Early Laminar and Turbulent Models

3. Applications of Internal Flow Using Parameters

4. Applications of External Flow Using Parameters

5. One Dimensional High Speed Flow

6. Exploration of a Simple Numerical Technique