Review of Turbulent Jets and Plumes—A Lagrangian Approach by Joseph H. W. Lee and Vincent H. Chu: Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands; 2003; 408 pp. Price: $135.

The authors attempt “to give a consistent and unified development of a Lagrangian approach for the prediction of free jets and plumes, including effects of crossflow and ambient density stratification. The authors believe that the integral approach plays a pivotal role in explaining important and practically useful concepts to the engineer and that the subject can best be understood by observation of simple experiments,” and this reviewer shares this view. A practical Lagrangian modeling tool in the form of an interactive virtual reality software (VISJET) is offered to the readers to solve their problems.

The text includes many worked examples and provides problems for the reader to solve. This book is intended for senior undergraduates and first-year graduate students in water and environmental engineering programs. It can also serve as an introduction to environmental fluid mechanics for students in mechanical and chemical engineering as well as earth and environmental sciences.

The first chapter provides a general introduction to turbulent jets and plumes, with some pictures of jets and plumes in the environment. Chapter 2 presents a detailed treatment of plane and circular turbulent jets. It develops the integral equations from the Reynolds equations and the continuity equation and shows good correlation of the different scales along with some details of turbulence properties from experiments. On page 28, $\delta p∕\delta y$ is wrongly given the order of zero, and it would be logical to add a minus sign on the left-hand side of Eq. 2-30. Chapter 3 deals with turbulent plumes and buoyant jets. It considers in detail the round plume, the relevant equations of motion, as well as integral equations and extends this treatment to plumes with initial momentum (buoyant jets). This chapter also introduces a discussion of the Lagrangian approach, introduced into the literature by the second author in 1977. A detailed account of inclined buoyant jets in a stagnant environment is provided in Chapter 4, with a good discussion of the scales of this flow. This chapter also presents solutions using their Lagrangian approach.

Chapter 5 deals with density stratification in the environment, and thermals and plumes are discussed using the Lagrangian approach. Predictions from the model are compared with experimental observations. Round jets in coflowing streams are discussed in Chapter 6, and by using a Lagrangian jet spreading hypothesis, an integral model has been developed, and the predictions have been compared with experimental results. Chapter 7 treats jets in crossflow. Using the advected line puff analogy, the bent-over phase of the jet in crossflow has been analyzed numerically and experimentally. A corresponding treatment of plumes in crossflow is provided in Chapter 8.

Chapter 9 presents a very detailed treatment of the Lagrangian formulation for jets, plumes, puffs, and thermals, in coflowing or crossflowing ambients and with nonuniform density. The authors use the idea of the dominant eddies (occupying the entire section of the jets, plumes, or puffs) and the method of excesses. They use a special formulation for the spreading. This is an interesting chapter to read and to consider the different ideas introduced. Chapter 10 extends the method introduced in the last chapter to a series of practical problems. They consider several data sets in the field for asymptotic regimes. The implementation of JETLAG is illustrated by several examples.

On the whole, this book is well organized and presents a good treatment of turbulent jets, plumes, buoyant jets, puffs, and thermals. The authors have done research and teaching in this field for 2 decades and have published extensively in this field. A list of references is provided, and this reviewer was surprised to see that the classical work of Abramovich (The theory of turbulent jets) not listed there.

I think that researchers in the field of turbulent jets and plumes and related problems would benefit by studying this interesting book. It would also be useful for graduate students and engineers working in the field of environmental fluid mechanics and engineering and would be an useful addition to most libraries.