AUTHOR: Joseph M. Powers, Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering,
University of Notre Dame; AIAA Fellow
TITLE: Mechanics of Fluids (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
AWARD: Presented for an outstanding contribution to aeronautical and astronautical literature in the relatively recent past. The emphasis is on the high quality or major influence of the piece and is an
incentive for aerospace professionals to write eloquently and persuasively about their field.
DESCRIPTION: Mechanics of Fluids provides a modern approach to classical fluid mechanics, presenting an accessible and rigorous introduction to the field, with a strong emphasis on both mathematical exposition and physical problems. The book includes a broad range of fluid mechanics topics, including governing equations, vorticity, potential flow, compressible flow, viscous flow, instability, and turbulence.
Why did you write this book?
I believed it was important for today’s students to have a text that convincingly describes fluid behavior in the language of mechanics. With a set of course notes that had been in development since 1991, and a large block of time available at the height of the COVID pandemic, the time seemed right to capture these ideas within the pages of an actual book. One of my goals was to prepare students for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for challenging multiscale problems by focusing on the underlying continuum mechanics that is the foundation of modern CFD methods. Many fluids texts are in a hurry to describe the motion of either simple ideal gases or incompressible liquids and they often include too few details of the underlying mechanics, geometry, and thermodynamics. There is a benefit to taking a general approach to describe the mechanics of a material, which could be either fluid or solid.
Considerable effort was given to present the basic tools of geometry, followed by the basic kinematics and dynamics of a general material. Specialization to a fluid allowed a presentation of potential, viscous, compressible, linearly unstable, and turbulent flows. Special attention was given to problems that fully couple mass, momentum, and energy conservation, along with thermodynamics and heat transfer so the fluid mechanics can be understood in a broader context. One such problem was natural convection, which was first studied in a low-speed limit with a classical similarity solution. Its linear stability also was examined. Next its weakly nonlinear dynamics were studied with the Lorenz model, and the book concludes with a direct numerical simulation of a fully turbulent natural convection problem.
Who should read it?
The book is appropriate for first- and second-year graduate students in aerospace, mechanical, chemical, and civil engineering, as well as applied mathematics and physics. Several advanced undergraduates have found it useful as well. It also should be of use to those in the general research community who wish to acquire knowledge of the continuum mechanics of fluids. While the book does not explicitly delve into the details of aeronautics, it has nearly all the building blocks such as discussion of vortex dynamics, potential flow theory, compressible flows with shocks, boundary-layer theory, linear stability, nonlinear dynamics, and turbulence.
What’s next for you?
I plan to continue my work in combustion, high-speed flows, and education. I’ve written two other books, one on applied mathematics (2015) and one on combustion (2016). I must decide if there will be a fourth! If so, it might be an undergraduate text on thermodynamics, which is a beautiful subject.
