ABSTRACT
Earlier chapters have stressed that the propagation of pressure transients within fluid carrying systems is a natural consequence of any intentional or inadvertent change in the system operating condition and is the mechanism by which change is communicated to the system as a whole. Due to the universal nature of pressure transient propagation, its analysis, simulation and, most importantly, its prevention and control, became a truly international interdisciplinary engineering topic whose genesis has already been discussed, from the seminal work of Joukowsky that, in 1900, established the fundamental understanding of transient propagation, through to the introduction of computer based Method of Characteristics analysis techniques in the 1960s, due to the work of Lister, Streeter and Fox.
