LECTURES ON FLUID MECHANICS

© Christopher Earls Brennen

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The author taught undergraduate fluid mechanics at the California Institute of Technology for almost 40 years. In the year just prior to his retirement the lectures were recorded by the students and these recordings are presented here for anyone who might find them of value. The recordings are very unpolished but I have taken the opportunity here to link them to chapters from my book entitled "Internet Book on Fluid Mechanics".

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many marvellous graduate students who served as teaching assistants in this course down through the years. Their help and advice greatly enhanced the learning experience in this course. I also owe a great debt to my mentor Allan Acosta who not only encouraged me when I first presented this course but also provided a very valuable model in the form of his book "Fluid Flow" coauthored with Rolf Sabersky.

I would also like to acknowledge the great debts I owe to many hundreds of colleagues in the fluid mechanics communities all over the world but particularly at the institution, the California Institute of Technology, where I was honored to spend almost all of my professional career. Among those closest colleagues, I owe a great debt to my dear friends, Allan Acosta, Ted Wu and Rolf Sabersky. Without their generosity and support my life would have been much less rich. In addition, wish to acknowledge a few very special colleagues from distant lands, Yoshi Tsujimoto, Yoi Matsumoto, Kenjiro Kamijo, S.Hori and Pan Zhongyong. Of course, I was also privileged to work with a marvellous and talented group of graduate 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, 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, R.V.Uy, T.A.Waniewski, F.d'Auria, R.Zenit, M.E.Duttweiler, R.Miskovish, Y.Hsu, S.R.Hostler, E,Koos, N.Vriend, and K.Ando, I express my sincerest gratitude. In addition, I am grateful to the hundreds of undergraduates with whom I was privileged to interact during more than forty years of teaching and administration at Caltech. Finally, my life has been immeasurably enriched by the friendship of two spectacular women, Doreen and Barbara, and for them no words will suffice.

As is done throughout the pages which follow please proceed to the next menu by clicking either "LECTURE X" or the following image:

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Last updated 4/9/04.

Christopher E. Brennen