This is a book on fluid dynamics. It is not a book on computation. Many excellent books on fluid dynamics are available: why is another needed?

In recent decades, numerical algorithms and computer power have advanced to the point that computer simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations have become routine. This vastly expands our ability to solve these equations, further extending our understanding of fluid flow and providing a tool for engineering analysis. Computer simulations are solutions of a different nature from classical exact and approximate solutions. They are numerical data rather than formulas. One of our objectives in this text is to relate computer solutions to theoretical fluid dynamics. Indeed, it is this goal, rather than computation as a tool for complex engineering analysis, that provides the guideline for this text. Computer solutions can reproduce closed-form and approximate solutions; they can illuminate the merits and limits of simple analyses; and they can provide entirely new solutions of varying degrees of complexity. The time is ripe to integrate computer solutions into fluid dynamics education.

From a pedagogical perspective, readily available, commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software provides a new resource for teaching fluid dynamics. This software converts CFD from a technique used by researchers and engineers in industry into a readily accessible facility. It is a challenge to integrate such software packages into the educational structure. Most of the examples in this book have been computed with commercial software, and exercises to be solved with such software have been suggested. How far to go in this direction was a true quandary.