Plasma fluid aspects of the solar wind

Significant progress in the description and understanding of the solar wind has been achieved with fluid models. Nevertheless, there is - so far - no general model capable of providing a mathematical solution for the overall solar wind phenomenon. This paper attempts a presentation of existing plasma fluid models for the solar wind. This includes a general characterization and illustration of the capabilities of various models. Insight to fundamental physical processes is provided by such model comparisons. As a result, a sound basis is provided for further physical study of magnetohydrodynamic and/or transient phenomena, neither of which is systematically considered here.