TABLE OF CONTENTS Larry W. Mays
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona
Since the Egyptian s and Mesopotamian s first successful efforts to control the flow of water thousands of years ago, a rich history of hydraulics has evolved. Sec. 1.2 contains a brief description of some ancient hydraulic structures that are found around the world. During the 20th century, many new developments have occurred in both theoretical and applied hydraulics. A number of handbooks and textbooks on hydraulics have been published, as indicated in Fig. 1.1. From the viewpoint of hydraulic design, however, only manuals, reports, monographs, and the like have been published, mostly by government agencies. Unfortunately, many aspects of hydraulic design have never been published as a compendium. This Hydraulic Design Handbook is the first effort devoted to producing a comprehensive handbook for hydraulic design. The book covers many aspects of hydraulic design, with step-by-step procedures outlined and illustrated by sample design problems.
Although humans are newcomers to earth, their achievements have been enormous. It was only during the Holocene epoch (10,000 years ago) that agriculture developed (keep in mind that the earth and the solar system originated 4,600 million years ago). Humans have spent most of their history as hunters and food-gatherers. Only in the past 9,000 to 10,000 years have humans discovered how to raise crops and tame...
