Fluid Mechanics from the Beginning

Stir a cup of tea and stop: the leaves gather in the middle, not at the edge. Air and water obey a few laws — mass is kept, momentum changes only by force, energy is accounted for, and a fluid sticks to every wall — and out of them come lift and drag, waves and whirlpools, turbulence and shock waves, weather and blood flow. Run on the page: pressure and buoyancy; streamlines and vortices; Bernoulli and the control volume; pipes, boundary layers and turbulence; drag, lift and wings; rivers, waves and drops; nozzles, plumes and bubbles; pumps, networks and simulations; the spinning Earth and the flows of life. Put a wing in a stream and watch it stall, size a pipe and a pump, carry a flood past a town — every flow computed by the page.

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Every flow, curve and number on these pages is computed by the page or cited with its source; your progress stays in this browser. Nothing here is safety advice — flood water, fast rivers, the sea and storms kill, and the official warnings where you are are the ones to follow — and nothing here is medical advice or a design: real pipes, channels and structures are designed to the standards in force by qualified engineers. The course names no product. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any organisation, manufacturer, publisher or author mentioned here.

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