Finite element method in incompressible, adiabatic and compressible flows. From fundamental concepts to applications (Q2263165)

The contents of this work are as follows: 1 Introduction, Part I Introduction to finite element methods in fluid flows, 2 Basic concepts in finite element method, 3 Pipeline systems, 4 Potential flow, 5 Advection-diffusion, 6 Creeping flow, Part II Computational methods and applications of finite element method in fluid flows, 7 Continuum mechanics of fluid flows, 8 Analysis of incompressible flows, 9 Analysis of adiabatic flows, 10 Analysis of compressible flows, and 11 ALE formulation. The book also contains 111 references, some of them belonging to the author, and an index. The author pays considerable attention to the computational instability (the continuity equation depends only on velocity) of FEM in solving incompressible flows problems as well as to the strategies to correct this behavior. Thus, based on physical suppositions, he introduces the concept of adiabatic flow, i.e., an analysis of fluid flows which intermediates between incompressible and compressible flows. The main assumption in this concept refers to the state equation in which the pressure depends only on density and is independent of temperature. Moreover, in the adiabatic approximation the acoustic velocity is variable. The author uses this method as well as the acoustic velocity method (the acoustic velocity is assumed constant) in order to analyze a fairly large variety of flow problems, and as a conclusion of his numerical experiments he claims that ``these methods are useful for almost all kinds of fluid flows'' (see p.\,318). Thus, the governing equations along with field variables, corresponding to incompressible, adiabatic as well as to compressible flows, are rigorously introduced. FEM based on several interpolation formulas are used to discretize these equations, and some simple explicit and implicit finite difference schemes achieve the time marching. This is a familiar scenario. The great surprise is that the classical model for viscous incompressible fluids, i.e., the Navier-Stokes system, is totally absent. Unfortunately, the author does not conduct a minimal discussion about the possible advantages or disadvantages, capability and robustness of his adiabatic approximation compared with this highly versed model. The work contains a large and useful collection of flow charts with the corresponding FORTRAN 90 codes and a succinct description of the involved subroutines. They refer to flow through a pipeline, potential and creeping flows and to the advection-diffusion of a substance.