Doklady Physics, Vol. 49, No. 4, 2004, pp. 237238. Translated from Doklady Akademii Nauk, Vol.

395, No. 4, 2004, pp. 485486. Original Russian Text Copyright 2004 by Shcheprov.

MECHANICS

Example of a Flow of a Viscous Incompressible Fluid around a Sphere at an Arbitrary Reynolds Number
A. V. Shcheprov
Presented by Academician A.A. Petrov October 27, 2003 Received October 27, 2003

In [13], the NavierStokes equations describing axisymmetric ows of an incompressible viscous uid in cylindrical coordinates with the axial x and radial r components were reduced to the form L = , 1 1 2 --- L = -- ------ ------ ------ ------ + ------ ------. R r r x x r r2 x (1) (2)

where a is an arbitrary positive constant and the constant c is from Eq. (3). It is easy to verify that this function is a solution of Eq. (1) with right-hand side (3). In this case, ( x, 0 ) = ------ ( x, 0 ) 0 r on the symmetry axis r = 0 for |x| a and 2 2 2 2 ( x, a x ) = ------ ( x, a x ) 0 n (5)

Here, (x, r) is the stream function dened by the formula d = r v x dr r v r dx , where vx and vr are the axial and radial velocity components, respectively; R is the Reynolds number; 1 - ----, + ------ -L = ------2 2 x r r r
2 2

and (x, r) is an auxiliary function. It was found in [13] that both sides of Eq. (2) vanish after the substitution of the function = cr ,
2

(3)

where c is an arbitrary constant; i.e., this function is a particular solution of this equation. In this study, we consider the stream function given by a r a r x r r = c ------------------------------- --------- + --------- + ----- , 2 2 3/2 6 10 10 15 ( x + r )
5 2 2 2 2 2 4

(4)

Dorodnicyn Computing Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Vavilova 40, Moscow, 119991 Russia e-mail: yds@ccas.ru

- is the normal derivon the circle x2 + r2 = a2, where ----n ative. Thus, functions (3) and (4) describe an axisymmetric ow of a viscous incompressible uid around a sphere with radius a, and equalities (5) are the no-slip conditions on the surface of the sphere. Since both sides of Eq. (2) vanish after the substitution of function (3), the resulting ow is independent of the Reynolds number. For the rst time, a ow around a sphere was investigated in the 1850s by Stokes, who solved the equation for a viscous uid in the absence of convection [4, 5] (see also [6, p. 504]). In 1911, Hadamard [7, p. 1311] solved the problem of the fall of a spherical liquid drop in a different viscous uid in the absence of mixing. As in the studies by Stokes, the convective (nonlinear) terms in the equations for the viscous uid were disregarded. The continuity of the tangential stress was one of the conditions imposed on the surface. It is worth noting that an internal ow was described in [7] by function (3), while the function coincides with the stream function of Hills spherical vortex [8], which satises both the Euler and NavierStokes equations. Since convective terms are absent in the original equations, the solutions obtained in the aforementioned studies are formally valid only for low Reynolds numbers. This study shows that functions (3) and (4), which represent a particular solution of the Navier Stokes equations given by Eqs. (1) and (2), describe a continuous ow of a viscous uid around a sphere for

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SHCHEPROV 2. U. Crudeli, Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei, Cl. Sci. Fis., Mat. Nat., Rend. 5, 783 (1927). 3. U. Crudeli, Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei, Cl. Sci. Fis., Mat. Nat., Rend. 6, 397 (1927). 4. G. G. Stokes, Philos. Mag. 1, 337 (1851). 5. G. G. Stokes, Trans. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 9, 8 (1856). 6. N. E. Kochin, I. A. Kibel, and N. V. Roze, Theoretical Hydromechanics (Fizmatgiz, Moscow, 1963), Part 2. 7. Oeuvres de Jacques Hadamard (CNRS, Paris, 1968), Vol. 3. 8. M. J. M. Hill, Br. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Rep. 696 (1893).

an arbitrary Reynolds number under one of the possible boundary conditions at innity. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Yu.D. Shmyglevski for stimulating discussions and assistance in the preparation of the manuscript for publication. REFERENCES
1. U. Crudeli, Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei, Cl. Sci. Fis., Mat. Nat., Rend. 5, 500 (1927).

Translated by T. Syromyatnikova

DOKLADY PHYSICS

Vol. 49

No. 4

2004