TABLE OF CONTENTS As an introduction, this chapter summarizes the basic hydrodynamic principles and laws on which we base the entire analysis of nearshore hydrodynamics and modelling. The presentation largely assumes that the reader is familiar with basic vector and tensor analysis which will be the language used for the rest of the book, and with the principles of basic fluid mechanics. The reference list at the end of the chapter includes a list of fluid mechanics texts that can be used as reference backup for the details of the basic parts of this chapter. Many of those will also contain useful lists of vector relationships. The book by Kundu (1990, 2001) is particularly designed for ocean fluid mechanics applications.
The review includes only results needed for the rest of the text. The first two sections on the kinematics and the dynamics of fluid flow only contain well-known equations and principles. They are just reviewed without proof or detailed explanations. The subjects of boundary conditions covered in Section 2.4, of turbulence in Section 2.5, and the general expression for energy flux in Section 2.6 are less commonly known, and therefore covered in more detail.
The assumptions made will be included in the review, since they form the fundamental limitations for the validity of the results. This is important and attempts will be made throughout the book to keep track of this and emphasize it. The reason is that some of the model equations to be discussed later turn out to...
