(7.

34)

so that, according to Eq. (7.33),

 (7.35)

and

 (7.36)

Our goal now lies in converting Eq. (7.33) into the form of a contour integral in the
complex plane that will have the benefit of allowing for a relatively easy evaluation of
lift and drag in many circumstances.

To develop the desired relation, first note that the and components of the
boundary defining the body in Fig. 7.4 can be used to create a path, , in the complex
plane according to

 (7.37)

The complex conjugate of satisfies

 (7.38)

and thus

 (7.39)
By definition, the contour integral with respect to of a complex function is
given by

 (7.40)

Defining pressure as a function of via the relation

 (7.41)

substituting for in Eq. (7.40), and using the definitions Eqs. (7.35) and (7.36)
gives

 (7.42)

For the flow of interest here, the velocity is uniform and equal to far from the
body. In regions of uniform velocity, the pressure is constant everywhere and may be
taken to be . In this case, pressure at the surface of the body is given from
Bernoulli’s equation as

 (7.43)

where gravitational effects are omitted. The magnitude of the complex velocity
defined in Eq. (7.8) is

 (7.44)

from which it follows that

  (7.45)

Consequently, the Bernoulli equation implies that the pressure is given by

 (7.46)

Because the integral of a constant over a closed contour is zero, the terms containing
and in Eq. (7.46) do not make contributions to Eq. (7.42) after substituting for
. Consequently,

 (7.47)

It proves useful in what follows to convert the integral in Eq. (7.47) to one with
respect to . To accomplish this, first expand out Eq. (7.47) using the definition of
to get

 (7.48)

It was noted previously in Eq. (7.31) that

 (7.49)

is a vector in the complex plane that is tangent to the boundary of the body in Fig. 7.4.
At the same time, the surface of the body is coincident with a streamline, and the
velocity field itself is tangent to the body. Consequently, the complex conjugate of Eq.
(7.8) is a vector in the complex plane that is tangent to the velocity field, and
  (7.50)

Because

 (7.51)

is real, Eq. (7.50) with Eq. (7.51) implies that

 (7.52)

is real. In this case, the fact that

 (7.53)

for any two complex numbers means that

 (7.54)

because real numbers are equal to their own complex conjugates. Substituting
Eq. (7.54) into (7.48) and simplifying yields

 (7.55)

a result known as the Blasius theorem. It shows that the drag and lift on a body in 2D
potential flow can be computed by evaluating the indicated complex contour integral.

The special advantage of Eq. (7.55) lies in the fact that it is in the form of a contour
integral over a complex function. Such integrals can be evaluated relatively easily in
many cases using a fundamental result of complex analysis known as the residue
theorem (Ahlfors 1979) to the effect that
  (7.56)

where the complex numbers are the “residues” of the function and the
summation is limited to that collection of residues contained within the area swept out
by the contour. Residues, if they exist, are associated with singular points of that
have the specific behavior

 (7.57)

Assuming that are the collection of points satisfying Eq. (7.57) within a contour of
interest, can be expressed in the form

 (7.58)

where is a function that is free of residues. Equation (7.56) comes about because it
may be shown that the contour integral of is zero, while integration of each of the
terms in the sum in Eq. (7.58) gives the value . Because Eq. (7.55) ties the drag and
lift to a contour integral of , it is only necessary to find the residues of this
expression to find the forces on a body. These ideas are illustrated in the next section.

7.4 Inviscid Flow Past a Cylinder

The complex potential for frictionless, incompressible flow past a cylinder was given
in Eq. (7.18). From this the pressure on the cylinder surface can be computed from Eq.
(7.46) and the total forces from Eq. (7.55). Thus a computation yields the complex
velocity
The result in Eq. (7.18) is, in fact, a special case of a more general result known as the circle
theorem (Milne-Thomson 1968), which concerns the modification of complex potentials that are
defined over the entire plane so as to accommodate the insertion of a fixed circular boundary.

The circle theorem holds that for any potential not having singularities within a distance

of the origin, the potential given by

 (7.19)

will have the boundary of the circle of radius as the streamline . Here the overbar

denotes a complex conjugate so that, for example, . in Eq. (7.19) may be interpreted as

the complex potential resulting from adding a circle of radius to the flow belonging to .

Specifically, for uniform flow where ,

 (7.20)

which clearly results in Eq. (7.18).

7.2 Flows Derived from a Power Law

Just as given scalar potentials and stream functions can be combined to create complex
potentials, so too the real and imaginary part of a given complex potential can be interpreted as
being the potential and stream function, respectively, of a flow field. In some cases the velocity
field is of obvious interest. As an example of the latter, consider the power law

 (7.21)

for any exponent and real scalar . This is a generalization of the potential in Eq. (7.9)

for uniform flow. Replacing in Eq. (7.21) using Eq. (7.11) yields

 (7.22)

and
  (7.23)

The complex velocity in this case is

 (7.24)

so that the velocity components are

To make sense of the flows corresponding to Eq. (7.21), consider the streamlines formed by

constant values of the stream function. In particular, for , the streamlines are determined by

the condition that , which means that they are the lines , …, and so forth. These are
rays emanating outward from the origin, as illustrated in Fig. 7.1. By virtue of the periodicity of

the sine function appearing in , the flow patterns that occur in two adjacent regions sharing

a common streamline are mirror images of each other. In some cases the physical
interpretation of the flow is more meaningful if the two adjacent sectors are considered together
as one flow domain. In such cases it is useful to define the angle

 (7.26)

which is also illustrated in Fig. 7.1.

Figure 7.1. Definition of the angles and formed by streamlines associated with

that appear as straight lines emanating from the origin.

The velocity components in polar coordinates as computed from Eq. (7.23) using Eqs. (3.19) are
The first of these shows that alternates in sign from one radial streamline to the next as

varies in increments of . Moreover, is symmetric and is antisymmetric across the

radial streamline separating two adjacent regions, so their velocity fields are mirror images. With
this understanding, it is straightforward to gain a sense of the flow given by the streamlines

plotted in Fig. 7.2 for three particular cases, namely, when , and , corresponding,

respectively, to or . Depending on the sign of , Fig. 7.2(a) shows flow either

symmetrically entering or leaving a corner along the axis; Fig. 7.2(b) shows either flow
impacting normal to a flat wall and turning sideways or else two columns of fluid meeting along
a flat surface and being turned away from the wall; and finally, Fig. 7.2(c) shows either a flow
impinging on a wedge-shaped object or else two separate streams merging in the wake of the
wedge. In all cases the option exists of changing the interpretation of these flows to focus on just
half of the flows seen in these images. In this case, Fig. 7.2(a) shows flow into a cavity along one
wall and out on the other; Fig. 7.2(b) shows flow into a right-angled obstacle or corner; and Fig.
7.2(c) shows flow onto or off of a ramp.

Figure 7.2. Streamlines corresponding to : (a) ; (b) ; (c) .

For , Eq. (7.25) shows that , which is uniform flow over a flat plate. For ,

becomes a reflex angle, and there is flow over an edge, as is illustrated in Fig. 7.3 for or

. For , it does not make sense to consider two adjacent regions between zero
streamlines.

Figure 7.3. Streamlines corresponding to .

The variation of the velocity along the wall for the various cases of Eq. (7.21) that have been
considered can be obtained from Eq. (7.27a). For the flows in Fig. 7.2, the radial velocity varies

according to , respectively. Each of these is zero at . More generally, it is evident that

the velocity at the point is zero for , infinite for , and equal to for . Thus,
for all cases of flow into a corner, the velocity is zero at the corner itself, while for flow around a
corner, as in Fig. 7.3, the speed of the potential flow is infinite at this point. Wherever the
velocity is not bounded, the potential flow cannot be physical. In the case, it is generally
expected that the flow would separate from the surface downstream of the sharp edge, a
phenomenon that cannot be modeled without taking viscosity into account. The velocity
singularity in the potential solution reflects the sharp, unphysical turn of the flow around the
edge point.

The flows for each have a stagnation point on the wall, though it is only in the case of the

flow impinging on a flat wall in Fig. 7.2(b), when , that the stagnation point is not in a
corner formed from two intersecting straight boundaries. When the stagnation point lies on the
smooth wall, it may be noticed that the streamline that intersects the wall at this point does so at
a right angle. In fact, this is a general result for any potential flow. Streamlines that intersect a
smooth wall at a stagnation point must do so at a right angle.

To prove this last statement, consider a streamline that coincides with a solid inviscid

boundary formed by the surface and that has a stagnation point at . Note that a
stagnation point on an arbitrary smooth boundary can be brought to this form by using a local
rectangular Cartesian coordinate system centered at the stagnation point. It may be shown (the

details are left for Problem 7.3) that the leading terms of a local Taylor series expansion of
in this case are

 (7.28)

Consequently, close to the stagnation point, so that higher order terms in Eq. (7.28) can be

neglected, the streamlines corresponding to are given by and , which clearly

intersect at a right angle at the boundary.

7.3 Forces in 2D Potential Flows

The flows that are conveniently created with the use of the complex potential are irrotational and
inviscid so they do not give rise to viscous forces acting either internally or upon bounding
surfaces. However pressure forces do exist in potential flows, and it is of some interest to see
how they contribute to the forces on immersed bodies. Determination of the pressure field
generally requires obtaining a solution to the dynamics of fluid flow expressed in the form of a
system of differential equations that will not be considered until Chapter 13. However, for the
potential flows of interest here, it turns out that the pressure can be determined entirely from
knowledge of the velocity via an important result known as Bernoulli’s equation. In this, the
quantity
  (7.29)

where is the gravitational acceleration and is the coordinate in the vertical direction, is
constant throughout potential flow fields. Thus, even though the velocity of a potential flow is
known through kinematical considerations alone, nonetheless, Bernoulli’s equation provides
dynamical information about the pressure field. We take advantage of this convenient result here
and defer derivation of Bernoulli’s equation until Section 16.2.

The knowledge of the pressure that comes from Bernoulli’s equation can be used to determine
the total pressure force acting on an arbitrary two-dimensional body in inviscid flow. Thus,

consider a body defined by a closed curve with general parametrization , as illustrated

in Fig. 7.4. In this discussion, denotes the vertical direction, and the gravitational term in
Eq. (7.29) is omitted. The force of the fluid outside and adjacent to a small section of arclength

making up the boundary is given by , where is an outward pointing normal. In

this, a unit thickness out of the plane is assumed for the boundary but not indicated explicitly.
Integrating over the surface gives the total pressure force on the body as

 (7.30)

The integration variable in Eq. (7.30) can be conveniently changed to by imitating the
mapping used in deriving Eq. (2.20). First note that a unit tangent vector to the boundary is given
by

 (7.31)

and thus a unit normal vector pointing outward (i.e., ) is

 (7.32)

Assume maps to along the boundary. Substitute Eq. (7.32) into (7.30), change

variables to , and use the identity (2.16) to give

  (7.33)

Figure 7.4. A general 2D body bounded by a closed curve ).

By convention, the force in the direction to which the incoming flow points, the direction in

the present case, is the drag, , whereas the force in the vertical direction is the lift, .
Thus

 (7.34)

so that, according to Eq. (7.33),

 (7.35)

and

 (7.36)

Our goal now lies in converting Eq. (7.33) into the form of a contour integral in the complex
plane that will have the benefit of allowing for a relatively easy evaluation of lift and drag in
many circumstances.

To develop the desired relation, first note that the and components of the boundary

defining the body in Fig. 7.4 can be used to create a path, , in the complex plane according
to

 (7.37)

The complex conjugate of satisfies

  (7.38)

and thus

 (7.39)

By definition, the contour integral with respect to of a complex function is given by

 (7.40)

Defining pressure as a function of via the relation

 (7.41)

substituting for in Eq. (7.40), and using the definitions Eqs. (7.35) and (7.36) gives

 (7.42)

For the flow of interest here, the velocity is uniform and equal to far from the body. In

regions of uniform velocity, the pressure is constant everywhere and may be taken to be . In
this case, pressure at the surface of the body is given from Bernoulli’s equation as

 (7.43)

where gravitational effects are omitted. The magnitude of the complex velocity defined in
Eq. (7.8) is

 (7.44)
from which it follows that

 (7.45)

Consequently, the Bernoulli equation implies that the pressure is given by

 (7.46)

Because the integral of a constant over a closed contour is zero, the terms containing and

in Eq. (7.46) do not make contributions to Eq. (7.42) after substituting for .
Consequently,

 (7.47)

It proves useful in what follows to convert the integral in Eq. (7.47) to one with respect to .

To accomplish this, first expand out Eq. (7.47) using the definition of to get

 (7.48)

It was noted previously in Eq. (7.31) that

 (7.49)

is a vector in the complex plane that is tangent to the boundary of the body in Fig. 7.4. At the
same time, the surface of the body is coincident with a streamline, and the velocity field itself is
tangent to the body. Consequently, the complex conjugate of Eq. (7.8) is a vector in the complex
plane that is tangent to the velocity field, and

 (7.50)

Because
  (7.51)

is real, Eq. (7.50) with Eq. (7.51) implies that

 (7.52)

is real. In this case, the fact that

 (7.53)

for any two complex numbers means that

 (7.54)

because real numbers are equal to their own complex conjugates. Substituting Eq. (7.54) into
(7.48) and simplifying yields

 (7.55)

a result known as the Blasius theorem. It shows that the drag and lift on a body in 2D potential
flow can be computed by evaluating the indicated complex contour integral.

The special advantage of Eq. (7.55) lies in the fact that it is in the form of a contour integral over
a complex function. Such integrals can be evaluated relatively easily in many cases using a
fundamental result of complex analysis known as the residue theorem (Ahlfors 1979) to the
effect that

 (7.56)

where the complex numbers are the “residues” of the function and the summation is
limited to that collection of residues contained within the area swept out by the contour.

Residues, if they exist, are associated with singular points of that have the specific behavior
  (7.57)

Assuming that are the collection of points satisfying Eq. (7.57) within a contour of interest,

can be expressed in the form

 (7.58)

where is a function that is free of residues. Equation (7.56) comes about because it may be

shown that the contour integral of is zero, while integration of each of the terms in the sum

in Eq. (7.58) gives the value . Because Eq. (7.55) ties the drag and lift to a contour integral

of , it is only necessary to find the residues of this expression to find the forces on a body.
These ideas are illustrated in the next section.

7.4 Inviscid Flow Past a Cylinder

The complex potential for frictionless, incompressible flow past a cylinder was given in Eq.
(7.18). From this the pressure on the cylinder surface can be computed from Eq. (7.46) and the
total forces from Eq. (7.55). Thus a computation yields the complex velocity