I am a student of Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati(India) doing my B.tech in Mechanical Engg. I am in IInd year.I am interested in the field of aerodynamic designing.Please advice me ,how should I go about it.

anticipating a reply abhishek Gupta

Hello Abhishek. I am finishing my grad studies in the US. I am familiar with aerodynamics. A good starting place is the basics. Have you studied fluid mechanics? When studing fluid mechanics, concentrate more on the dynamic side of things, the static incompressible fluids are for more for civil engineers.

Once you have studies fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, you are able to move into the field of gas dynamics. If you do not have a course in this subject you can try to find a book called 'Gas Dynamics' by Jonas (I think that is right). This ties the thermodynamics into the fluid mechanics. Gas Dynamics talks about compressibility, which plays a factor in aerodynamics.

Fluid dynamics are broken up into two fields: Inviscid flow, and viscous flow. A good classic book that discusses viscous flow is 'Boundary Layer Theory', by Dr. Herman Schlicting. The problem with this book is that is deep and does not have examples. A better book for a student may be a book I think called viscous flow by Frank White.

Unfortunately, I don't know which book to recommend for inviscid flow. I used two books, one which was practical but this one is out of print. Another which is very Theoretical and it lacks in practical problems. You can find something later on this.

I think the field is exciting. Does this help?