Fluid Mechanics: an interactive text is the CD‐ROM version of Liggett and Caughey’s textbook, Fluid Mechanics. The CD runs under Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, or Macintosh. It covers basic considerations, fluid statics, integral and differential descriptions, dimensional analysis and similitude, laminar and turbulent flows, incompressible pipe flow, potential flow, boundary layers, flow past bodies, compressible flows, open channel flows, fluid machinery, and transport. It also includes an extensive glossary and many illustrations.
The book won Choice’s Outstanding Academic Book award. This award already attests to the high quality of the text; so we shall not pursue it any further here. Instead we shall concentrate on the features of the CD‐ROM. The material is organized into three text levels. The basic level, level 1, deals only with very simple mathematics. Level 2 adds quantitative information to help solve most problems in fluids engineering at an introductory level. Level 3 adds more specialized information aimed at a more technical audience and details regarding derivations of many of the equations presented in level 2.
The authors hope that level 1 readers will skim through the material at other levels “to get a better understanding of the behavior of fluids and see what the mathematics can and cannot do for us. It is important for students of any subject to have a basic appreciation of what they do not understand as well as what they do understand.” Readers can change the text level at any time without changing the default level selected in user preferences.
There are ample examples, figures, graphs, tables, equations, and formulae to illustrate the points thoroughly. There are also about 100 movies which are mostly animations with no audio. Students can view the table of contents of either the book or the figures. They can also search for particular text or figures by selecting one or more chapters to search.
However, while the results of a text search remain easily accessible, the results of a search for figures disappear upon selection of a figure for viewing. One must go to the Contents button on the toolbar and select Find Figures to get back to the results.
The toolbar has two very helpful buttons: Data and Tools. The Data button provides a number of tables and utilities to illustrate concepts and to facilitate computations. These include airfoil characteristics; drag coefficients for cylinders, spheres, and miscellaneous shapes; Hagen Williams coefficient; Manning’s n for pipes and channels and rivers; Molec prop gases; an interactive Moody chart; pipe data; SAE viscosities; standard atmospheres; surface tension; vapor pressure; and properties of water. It also contains a fluid properties console that shows the conductivity, density, and viscosity of several common gases and liquids at standard conditions.
The Tools button provides several computational utilities to calculate area flow, axial flow, boundary integral equation, channel capacity (circular, trapezoidal), channel profiles, dimensional analysis, and pipe flow. It also includes EPANET, a program to calculate flows and pressure in pipe networks; a plotter; an integration solver; a transcendental solver; and worksheets to calculate frictional flow, pipe flow, Prandtl‐Meyer function, and heat addition. There’s also a conversion screen to convert units of mass, force, length, and time.
By making these tools and utilities available on the toolbar, the CD lets students access all kinds of data without having to fumble through tables and appendices or locating a calculator to perform the math.
The text is clearly designated in outline form both in the table of contents and in the screen headers. However, there is no indication of the length of each section or chapter. A red slider bar appears at the bottom of the screen to indicate one’s relative position in a chapter; but most readers, accustomed to the slider bar along the right margin, will overlook it.
The text appears as an image which means that students cannot select text portions for copying or printing; but they can create and manage bookmarks and personal notes.
Selecting the print option prints a screen image, including icons, buttons, etc. Students can toggle very easily between the text and any graphics, notes, or related material.
Fluid Mechanics: an interactive text makes very good use of the CD‐ROM medium and enhances the contents of the book. Except for the limitations on printing and copying and the likelihood that a reader might have difficulty determining one’s relative location in a topic, this is a well‐executed CD. It capitalizes on the medium, offers easy navigation, and locates desired material quickly.
