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The physics of fluid turbulence
Computer Physics Communications
Computer Physics Communications 78(1993) 218—219 North-Holland
Book review W. Arter AEA Cuiham, UK
The Physics of Fluid Turbulence W.D. McComb, Oxford University Press, 1991. xxiv
+
572 pages, £26 (paperback). ISBN 0 19 856256 X.
This book is one of the Oxford Engineering Science Series, and is reproduced to the high standards that one normally expects from the Oxford imprint. Nevertheless, prospective buyers of the hardback edition are warned that the copy received describes itself as “the first paperback edition (with corrections)”. In any event the number of typographical errors now present in the work (as detected by the reviewer) is acceptable for a book of this length, and does not detract from the considerable value of the volume to its stated audience, namely people wishing to enter the field of research into turbulence or wanting to understand important, recent advances in the theory of the subject. On opening the book, one is struck by the careful statement of the notation to be employed; this suggests a clarity of exposition that is borne out by later reading. The first two chapters, comprising 87 pages, serve to introduce the subject’s jargon, e.g. terms like “viscous sub-layer” and “eddy viscosity” and the meaning of the “closure problem”, in a readable manner. Anyone new to the subject will have been exposed to a nice mixture of theoretical and experimental results after reading these chapters, and the next chapter then gives a feel for more recent (post 1960) developments in work on turbulence. It is fair to say, however, that reading the relevant sections of e.g. Tritton’s Physical Fluid Dynamics would achieve similar ends. After its first section, chapter 3 succeeds in giving an outline of the rest of the book’s contents; the theoretical bias of which can be gathered by the fact that section 3.1 devotes 11 pages to experimental techniques, since this material “would not easily fit into the main part of the book”. Chapter 4—9, comprising 226 pages, are the most important part of the book, since there is a lack of any other comparable treatment of the material. Chapter 4 provides a valuable backgrounding in statistical mechanics, then chapters 5—8 treat renormalized perturbation theories and chapter 9 is concerned with renormalization group theories. The great value of these chapters to the physicist and engineer is that they employ classical mathematical notation wherever possible. In the reviewer’s opinion, they make accessible for the first time, the important advances represented by renormalized theories. Moreover, the author has not been afraid to criticise, which gives the text a particular value. Although some of those criticised may feel hard done by, nonetheless McComb has succeeded in broadening the audience for their work. The computational physicist will naturally focus on chapter 10, concerning the numerical simulation of turbulence. The brevity of the chapter, at some 24 pages, indicates that it is not a comprehensive review of the field. It does succeed in its aim of illustrating what can be achieved by simulation, although more attention could have been given to finite element and finite difference methods; also, the material concerning application of renormalization methods to subgrid modelling is very interesting. It fails OO1O-4655/93/$06.OO © 1993
—
Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All tights reserved
Book review
219
somewhat in its aim of describing “other” simulation methods, because the references stop at 1987, just before papers on lattice Boltzmann algorithms began to appear. The remaining 117 pages are meant to be more entertaining fare, which is not unreasonable after the earlier heavy going. Chapter 11 is an account of coherent structures, then chapters 12 and 13 treat turbulent diffusion, and finally chapter 14 is devoted to presumably a pet subject of its author, viz. non-Newtonian fluid turbulence with an emphasis on drag reduction. While it is true that replacing this by a chapter on so-called “wimpy” or low-dimensional turbulence would have given a better-balanced picture of recent work, the book’s main aims have been succesfully achieved by this point. The volume concludes with 31 pages of appendices, an author index and lastly a subject index. In summary, a useful book for the computational physicist in that it dispels much of the mystery in the theory (e.g. DIA, renormalization techniques, the use of diagram methods) underlying equations that he may called upon to solve in order to simulate turbulence. Further, it will serve to promote physical understanding of the numerical results that ultimately emerge.
Computer Physics Communications 78(1993) 218—219 North-Holland
Book review W. Arter AEA Cuiham, UK
The Physics of Fluid Turbulence W.D. McComb, Oxford University Press, 1991. xxiv
+
572 pages, £26 (paperback). ISBN 0 19 856256 X.
This book is one of the Oxford Engineering Science Series, and is reproduced to the high standards that one normally expects from the Oxford imprint. Nevertheless, prospective buyers of the hardback edition are warned that the copy received describes itself as “the first paperback edition (with corrections)”. In any event the number of typographical errors now present in the work (as detected by the reviewer) is acceptable for a book of this length, and does not detract from the considerable value of the volume to its stated audience, namely people wishing to enter the field of research into turbulence or wanting to understand important, recent advances in the theory of the subject. On opening the book, one is struck by the careful statement of the notation to be employed; this suggests a clarity of exposition that is borne out by later reading. The first two chapters, comprising 87 pages, serve to introduce the subject’s jargon, e.g. terms like “viscous sub-layer” and “eddy viscosity” and the meaning of the “closure problem”, in a readable manner. Anyone new to the subject will have been exposed to a nice mixture of theoretical and experimental results after reading these chapters, and the next chapter then gives a feel for more recent (post 1960) developments in work on turbulence. It is fair to say, however, that reading the relevant sections of e.g. Tritton’s Physical Fluid Dynamics would achieve similar ends. After its first section, chapter 3 succeeds in giving an outline of the rest of the book’s contents; the theoretical bias of which can be gathered by the fact that section 3.1 devotes 11 pages to experimental techniques, since this material “would not easily fit into the main part of the book”. Chapter 4—9, comprising 226 pages, are the most important part of the book, since there is a lack of any other comparable treatment of the material. Chapter 4 provides a valuable backgrounding in statistical mechanics, then chapters 5—8 treat renormalized perturbation theories and chapter 9 is concerned with renormalization group theories. The great value of these chapters to the physicist and engineer is that they employ classical mathematical notation wherever possible. In the reviewer’s opinion, they make accessible for the first time, the important advances represented by renormalized theories. Moreover, the author has not been afraid to criticise, which gives the text a particular value. Although some of those criticised may feel hard done by, nonetheless McComb has succeeded in broadening the audience for their work. The computational physicist will naturally focus on chapter 10, concerning the numerical simulation of turbulence. The brevity of the chapter, at some 24 pages, indicates that it is not a comprehensive review of the field. It does succeed in its aim of illustrating what can be achieved by simulation, although more attention could have been given to finite element and finite difference methods; also, the material concerning application of renormalization methods to subgrid modelling is very interesting. It fails OO1O-4655/93/$06.OO © 1993
—
Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All tights reserved
Book review
219
somewhat in its aim of describing “other” simulation methods, because the references stop at 1987, just before papers on lattice Boltzmann algorithms began to appear. The remaining 117 pages are meant to be more entertaining fare, which is not unreasonable after the earlier heavy going. Chapter 11 is an account of coherent structures, then chapters 12 and 13 treat turbulent diffusion, and finally chapter 14 is devoted to presumably a pet subject of its author, viz. non-Newtonian fluid turbulence with an emphasis on drag reduction. While it is true that replacing this by a chapter on so-called “wimpy” or low-dimensional turbulence would have given a better-balanced picture of recent work, the book’s main aims have been succesfully achieved by this point. The volume concludes with 31 pages of appendices, an author index and lastly a subject index. In summary, a useful book for the computational physicist in that it dispels much of the mystery in the theory (e.g. DIA, renormalization techniques, the use of diagram methods) underlying equations that he may called upon to solve in order to simulate turbulence. Further, it will serve to promote physical understanding of the numerical results that ultimately emerge.