Introduction to Hydrodynamic Stability

Product Description


Instability of flows and their transition to turbulence are widespread phenomena in engineering and the natural environment. They are important in applied mathematics, astrophysics, biology, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography, physics, and engineering. This is a graduate-level textbook to introduce these phenomena by modeling them mathematically, and describing numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. The visualization of instabilities is emphasized with many figures. Many worked examples and exercises for students illustrate the ideas of the text. Readers are assumed to be fluent in linear algebra, advanced calculus, elementary theory of ordinary differntial equations, complex variable and the elements of fluid mechanics. The book is aimed at graduate students, but is very useful for specialists in other fields.


Review


"Each chapter concludes with a large body of exercises (120 in all), of varying degrees of difficulty. These will be a boon for the instructor who is charged with finding suitable questions for assessment purposes. I found this book to be a very readable introductory textbook, and one which will make an excellent addition to the library of anyone contemplating a graduate level course in hydrodynamic stability." Mathematical Reviews


Book Description


Instability of flows and their transition to turbulence are widespread phenomena in engineering and the natural environment, and are important in applied mathematics, astrophysics, biology, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography and physics as well as engineering. This is a textbook to introduce these phenomena at a level suitable for a graduate course, by modelling them mathematically, and describing numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. The visualization of instabilities is emphasized, with many figures, and in references to more still and moving pictures. The relation of chaos to transition is discussed at length. Many worked examples and exercises for students illustrate the ideas of the text. Readers are assumed to be fluent in linear algebra, advanced calculus, elementary theory of ordinary differntial equations, complex variable and the elements of fluid mechanics. The book is aimed at graduate students but will also be very useful for specialists in other fields.


About the Author


Norman Riley is an Emeritus Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of East Anglia.