Steady two-dimensional flow past a normal flat plate

A vorticity/stream function formulation is used to obtain a numerical simulation of steady two-dimensional flow of a viscous incompressible fluid past a normal flat plate for a range of Reynolds numbers. A method of Fornberg [J. Fluid Mech. 98, 819 (1980)] is used to determine upstream and downstream boundary conditions on the stream function. Special care is taken in the neighbourhood of the singularities in vorticity at the plate edges and this is very important because any errors introduced are swept downstream and severely affect such quantities as the length and width of the attached eddies. The computed results are compared with those of a laboratory experiment in which a plane strip is drawn through water and ethylene glycol for the range of Reynolds numbers for which the experimental flow is stable.