LECTURES ON HYDRODYNAMICS OF PUMPS

© Christopher Earls Brennen

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In December 2005 the author was asked to present a set of lectures on the "Hydrodynamics of Pumps" at the NASA George Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Space Flight Center chose to record those lectures and the results are presented here.

The lectures were largely based on the author's book entitled the "Hydrodynamics of Pumps" originally jointly published in 1994 by Oxford University Press and Concepts ETI; later the publication was taken over by Cambridge University Press from whom the book is still available. The core of the book was based on a much earlier set of lectures presented by the author on several occasions as part of a short course on pumps at Concepts ETI in Norwich, Vermont; the course was organized by David Japikse, the founder of Concepts ETI (now Concepts NREC), a friend of many years with whom the author enjoyed much fruitful interaction. I am very grateful to David for his support and encouragement.

Of course, the seeds of the book were planted much earlier in my interactions with my mentors and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, where I was honored to spend almost all of my professional career. In particular, I owe a great debt to my close friend and colleague of many years, Professor Allan Acosta whose understanding and experience of pumps underlies much of the text.

But the lectures also have a much earlier connection with NASA and the George Marshall Space Flight Center. In 1970 Allan Acosta and I were invited to come to the NASA George Marshall Space Flight Center to talk about possible involvement in research for the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). This led to a contract that supported our research at Caltech for many years. It was to the great credit of Marshall staff members Loren Gross, Henry Stinson and Otto Goetz that they foresaw the role that our fundamental research could play in the development of the SSME. And so these lectures in 2005 really grew from that 1970 visit.

I would also like to acknowledge the great debts I owe to many hundreds of colleagues in fluid engineering communities all over the world. In addition to my colleagues at Caltech, Allan Acosta, Ted Wu and Rolf, I am deeply grateful to a few very special colleagues from distant lands, Yoshi Tsujimoto, Yoi Matsumoto, Kenjiro Kamijo, S.Hori and Pan Zhongyong. At Caltech, I was alsoprivileged to work with a marvellous and talented group of graduate students. To the late James Pearce, to 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.

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Last updated 4/9/04.

Christopher E. Brennen