Preface to the first
edition
This text is loosely based on a course on ‘Hydraulic Structures’ which
evolved over the years in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Uni-
versity of Newcastle upon Tyne. The final-year undergraduate and
Diploma/MSc postgraduate courses in hydraulic structures assume a good
foundation in hydraulics, soil mechanics, and engineering materials, and
are given in parallel with the more advanced treatment of these subjects,
and of hydrology, in separate courses.
It soon became apparent that, although a number of good books may
be available on specific parts of the course, no text covered the required
breadth and depth of the subject, and thus the idea of a hydraulic structures
textbook based on the course lecture notes came about. The hydraulic
structures course has always been treated as the product of team-work.
Although Professor Novak coordinated the course for many years, he and
his colleagues each covered those parts where they could make a personal
input based on their own professional experience. Mr Moffat, in particular,
in his substantial part of the course, covered all geotechnical engineering
aspects. In the actual teaching some parts of the presented text may, of
course, have been omitted, while others, particularly case studies (including
the discussion of their environmental, social, and economic impact), may
have been enlarged, with the subject matter being continuously updated.
We are fully aware that a project of this kind creates the danger of
presenting the subject matter in too broad and shallow a fashion; we hope
that we have avoided this trap and got it ‘about right’, with worked
examples supplementing the main text and extensive lists of references
concluding each chapter of the book.
This text is not meant to be a research monograph, nor a design
manual. The aim of the book is to provide a textbook for final-year
undergraduate and postgraduate students, although we hope that
researchers, designers, and operators of the many types of hydraulic struc-
tures will also find it of interest and a useful reference source.