INTERNET BOOK ON FLUID DYNAMICS
© Christopher Earls Brennen
Acknowledgments
Over the more than thirty years that I was privileged to spend as an active faculty member at the California Institute of Technology, I often taught courses on fluid mechanics at either the undergraduate or graduate level. This book represents a composite of the technical material presented in those courses as well as in lectures given at various academic, commercial and government venues. Consequently the book encompasses material I was fortunate to learn from my mentors and colleagues at Caltech and from the innumerable friends I interacted with in other academic and technical contexts around the world. Most of all I owe a very special debt to my Caltech mentors, Allan Acosta, Ted Wu and Rolf Sabersky. Indeed the origins of many of the pages in this book can be found in their books and papers. In addition I learnt a huge amount from the numerous friends I interacted with not only in academia but also in industry and at government laboratries in the USA and around the world. Prior to my years at Caltech, I was privileged to be guided by my thesis advisor, L.C. Woods at Oxford University and by George Gadd and John English at the National Physical Laboratory in London. Subsequently, I learnt much from my interactions with engineers and scientists at NASA, at the US Navy and a multitude of engineering organizations. In addition, I wish to express a special word of recognition to a few very special colleagues from distant lands, Yoshi Tsujimoto, Yoi Matsumoto, Kenjiro Kamijo, S.Hori and Pan Zhongyong.
In addition, at Caltech I was privileged to work with a marvellous and talented group of research students whose efforts are reflected throughout these pages. To James Pearce, S.L.Huang, K.T.Oey, T.V.Nguyen, D.M.Braisted, R.J.Bernier, C.S.Campbell, J.S.Patton, J.Spelt, D.R.Adkins, L. d'Agostino, B.Jaroux, H.K.Kytomaa, H.Ahn, R.J.Franz, S.L.Ceccio, S.Kumar, A.Guinzburg, D.P.Hart, Y.Kuhn de Chizelle, A.Bhattacharya, F.Z.Liu, E.A.McKenney, Y.-C.Wang, C.R.Wassgren, G.E.Reisman, J.Sivo, R.V.Uy, T.A.Waniewski, F.d'Auria, R.Zenit, M.E.Duttweiler, S.Beatty, R.Miskovish, Y.Hsu, S.R.Hostler, J.Cory, A.T.Preston, E,Koos, N.Vriend, and K.Ando, I express my sincerest gratitude. Many of these graduate students also served as my teaching assistants in the courses I taught and prepared many of the problem solutions included in this book. In addition I wish to recognize the many other graduate students who served as teaching assistants including Jeff Krimmel, Xiaobai Li, Jeff Hanna, Nick Parziale, Susan Paulson, and many others. I am also grateful to the hundreds of undergraduates with whom I was privileged to interact during my years at Caltech and from whom I learnt much.
Finally, my life has been immeasurably enriched by the friendship of two spectacular women, Doreen and Barbara, and for them no words will suffice.
Last updated 1/1/21.
Christopher E. Brennen