TU Delft OPEN Textbooks

Before you lies the book ‘Ports and Waterways - Navigating the changing world’, written by the Ports and Waterways team, part of the Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty at Delft University of Technology. It integrates the content of a number of separate lecture notes we used in our teaching activities and updates this information where relevant. The integration reflects our vision that ports and waterways should be viewed as parts of a coherent system that supports waterborne supply chains, and that their integral design and operation is essential.

This book treats optics at the level of students in the later stage of their bachelor or the beginning of their master.  It is assumed that the student is familiar with Maxwell’s equations. Although the book takes account of the fact that optics is part of electromagnetism, special emphasis is put on the usefulness of approximate models of optics, their hierarchy and limits of validity. Approximate models such as geometrical optics and paraxial geometrical optics are treated extensively and applied to image formation by the human eye, the microscope and the telescope.

Polarisation states and how to manipulate them are studied using Jones vectors and Jones matrices.  In the context of interference, the coherence of light is explained thoroughly. To understand fundamental limits of resolution which cannot be explained by geometrical optics, diffraction theory is applied to imaging. The angular spectrum method and evanescent waves are used to understand the inherent loss of information about subwavelength features during the propagation of light. The book ends with a study of the working principle of the laser.

Traffic processes cause several problems in the world. Traffic delay, pollution are some of it. They can be solved with the right road design or traffic management (control) measure. Before implementing these designs of measures, though, their effect could be tested. To this end, knowledge of traffic flow theory is needed.

This textbook on Coastal Dynamics focuses on the interrelation between physical wave, flow and sediment transport phenomena and the resulting morphodynamics of a wide variety of coastal systems. The textbook is unique in that it explicitly connects the dynamics of open coasts and tidal basins; not only is the interaction between open coasts and tidal basins of basic importance for the evolution of most coastal systems, but describing the similarities between their physical processes is highly instructive as well. This textbook emphasizes these similarities to the benefit of understanding shared processes such as nonlinearities in flow and sediment transport. Some prior knowledge with respect to the dynamics of flow, waves and sediment transport is recommended.

The authors would like to track the reach and use of this Open Textbook. Therefore, they would be very pleased if you could fill out a form to provide information on your intended use of this book. The form also provides options to subscribe for update notifications and give feedback.

Delftse Foundations of Computation is a textbook for a one quarter introductory course in theoretical computer science. It includes topics from propositional and predicate logic, proof techniques, set theory and the theory of computation, along with practical applications to computer science. It has no prerequisites other than a general familiarity with computer programming.

In dredging, trenching, (deep sea) mining, drilling, tunnel boring and many other applications, sand, clay or rock has to be excavated. This book gives an overview of cutting theories. It starts with a generic model, which is valid for all types of soil (sand, clay and rock) after which the specifics of dry sand, water saturated sand, clay, atmospheric rock and hyperbaric rock are covered. For each soil type small blade angles and large blade angles, resulting in a wedge in front of the blade, are discussed. For each case considered, the equations/model for the cutting forces, power and specific energy are given. The models are verified with laboratory research, mainly at the Delft University of Technology, but also with data from literature.

The book presents a coherent theory of building information, focusing on its representation and management in the digital era. It addresses issues such as the information explosion and the structure of analogue building representations to propose a parsimonious approach to the deployment and utilization of symbolic digital technologies like BIM.