I am an undergraduate student at the University of Bristol, England. I have a limited knowledge of CFD codes through lectures but am interested in developing my knowledge further. There are at present a large number of CFD books on the market and was wondering if anyone could recommend a good book to start from.

Hi Ian,

you may want to go a few hundred messages down the list to a thread called "books for beginners", where several books have been recommended.

There is a series of excellent lecture notes written by David W. Zingg (University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS)), together with Harvard Lomax and Thomas H. Pulliam (NASA Ames Research Center). They're aimed at beginners and cover such topics as Finite Difference Approximations, the Semi-Discrete Approach,Finite Volume Methods, Time-Marching Methods for ODEs, Stability of Linear Systems, Choice of Time-Marching Methods, Relaxation Methods, Multigrid Strategies, Numerical Dissipation, and Split and Factored Forms together with Linear Analysis of these. In my opinion these are the best notes I've ever seen on CFD. They present the subject in a very systematic manner. I think they were going to turn these notes into a book but I'm not sure if it is out there yet. There is also Anderson's book (That's John D. Anderson), but the former is a million times better. If you're interested let me know and I'll see if they agree to mail a copy to you.

One thing is that to really understand CFD you need to have a strong background in math (calculus, linear algebra, complex numbers, etc.) That is, if you want to get deep into the subject.

In addition, there is a very good introductory set of notes on the internet (www.erc.msstate.edu/education/gridbook) on grid generation. I strongly recommend that you check that out.

Good luck.

1. Computational Techniques for Fluid Dynamics

Vols I and II.

By C.A.J. Fletcher (*not* Pletcher as is often cofused with! Pletcher too has co-authored a book on CFD)

Suggest you start from Vol I even if you are strong in math/calculus background.

And welcome to the CFD circus!

Since my response was posted, quite a few people have contacted me to find out how they can get a copy of these notes. I spoke to Professor Zingg at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and it seems that the notes can be downloaded at site

http://goldfinger.utias.utoronto.ca/~dwz/

You may have to follow a few links. Also, the authors are planning to approach a publisher this spring.

One more thing: If you have any questions about the contents of the book or if you find a passage unclear, please feel free to send me an e-mail. Afshin.

Yes, i'm reading it now. Where can i get the codes in the book, so i can try it?