Abstract
Ocean engineering is a systems engineering field and requires a relatively broad background in several aspects of engineering. The role of hydrodynamics is central to all ocean engineering activities and despite an ocean engineer’s specialist designation, sooner or later some aspects of hydrodynamics will encroach upon the problem he or she is trying to solve. The intent of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive treatment of marine hydrodynamics, but instead to act as a reference source to provide enough working knowledge to solve practical problems, or at least a good idea of where to start looking. A range of topics is covered including dimensional analysis, static and dynamic flows, potential and viscous flows, laminar and turbulent flows, boundary layers, wakes, jets and shear layers, and drag and lift forces.