Preface

Summary

The goal of this book is to bring together classical and recent developments in the field of boundary integral and singularity methods for steady and unsteady Stokes flow. The targeted audience includes graduate students of engineering and applied mathematics, as well as academic and industrial researchers in the field of fluid mechanics. The material was selected so that the book may serve both as a reference monograph and as a textbook in an advanced course of fluid mechanics or computational fluid dynamics. The prerequisites are introductory fluid mechanics, real analysis, and numerical methods. Each section of every chapter is followed by a number of theoretical or computer problems whose objectives are to complement the theory, indicate extensions, and provide further insights. The references were chosen so as to provide the reader with a convenient entry to the immense literature of boundary integral, boundary element, and singularity methods.

The author would like to express his appreciation to Professor Sangtae Kim of the University of Wisconsin for giving him access to his recent work. Insightful discussions with Dr Mark Kennedy provided the motivation for developing and restating a number of results. The typescript benefitted in many different ways from the superb work of Dr Susan Parkinson, technical editor of the Cambridge University Press. Thanks are due to Dr Seppo Karilla for offering constructive comments on the early typescript.

The author would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms Audrey Hill for her indispensable encouragement and support.