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4.5
If you are spoiled by the timeless faultless aesthetics of Wiley college texts - R. Byron Bird's fluid dynamics texts (1987) printed 25 years ago still look and feel new, modern and beautiful - and only want to buy such top quality products, then feel free to ignore the existence of this 1999 first edition transport text. Compared with Pearson Prentice Hall PTR texts (their yellow books are in horrible paper quality), the paper is top-notch: clean, white, firm/solid, and much better than Wiley's (easy to feel, and observe if you compare the thickness of all mentioned publishers' texts). However the typesetting, incl. illustrations, drawings, graphs, tables, sketches, does look inacceptably cheap and ruins the book's overall attractiveness; in a bookstore most potential buyers would shelf it back after flipping it through for 4 seconds. By the by i doubt that you will ever see this 10-years-old book on shelves in a bookshop. In short, physical quality is outstanding, optical looks is cheap and feels like packed lecture notes, so what about contents? -- Contentwise the book intended for sophomore (4th+5th semester) Chemical Engineering students has surprising strong points:The very wordy text explains broad and in utmost detail the elementary concepts and basic aspects of parts of the equations for exact understanding and foundation of fundamental knowledge. The authors try very(!) hard and succeed in teaching the young student by: [1.] talking in a direct, honest manner to the reader as if a teacher talks to you from behind your back, [2.] using extensive(!!) helpful footnotes (special notes which are even directer than [1.]), [3.] comparing their equations and conceptual approaches with other well-known texts/authors, [4.] pointing the reader to further reading with exact page number referencing, [5.] deriving/computing/manipulating equations and formulas in detailed steps i.e. without skipping intermediate mathematical steps plus a high level of redundancy, [6.] consciously having the absolute beginner (novice) in mind and being considerate of their needs, doubts (FAQ's) and capabilities, and [7.] using numerous examples and case studies of the simplest nature yet working them out in detail, and the short straight-forward not very difficult end-of-chapter problems. Honestly, this is *the most dis-confusing* (and easy) text on transport phenomena i've encountered so far. What else? Mathematical treatment is at a low level; no tensor equations, (almost) no vector equations, exclusively scalar equations, and for one-dimensional cases only. Successful sections are all of Chapter 1 (Essentials), the macroscopic balances, the detailed treatment of averaging techniques throughout the text, dimensional analysis, and the illustrative or comparative examples at the beginning of subchapters. Weak points are: the microscopic balances, the short last chapter on mass transfer (which is treated in a more practical, applied manner for equipment design), the unbalanced treatment of subject matter (heat conduction too long, appendix, etc.), much study material missing (chemical reactions or entropy or other thermodynamic aspects, rotational or accelerated reference frame systems, equations or balances for multicomponent diffusion or systems); awkward the inclusion of lengthy introductions to finite element method FEM and to finite difference method FDM (numerical solution techniques, with spreadsheets).There are so many excellent and attractive (and complete) books on introductory transport phenomena, both for undergrads (e.g. Plawsky2, BSL1) and for grads (e.g. Slattery, BSL1) that I cannot recommend this fine text as full price purchase. Amazon marketplace offers it for less than 15 bucks. At such a low price, it *is* a strong buy recommendation for poor learners of this subject matter. Or for novices to the field (be it either fluid mechanics or heat transfer or transport phenomena), consider borrowing it from a good library!
