The Motion of a Viscous Fluid Past an Impulsively Started Semi-infinite Flat Plate

It is shown that by employing a suitable numerical method, theproblem of determining the motion of a viscous fluid past asemi-infinite flat plate which is started impulsively from restwith constant velocity parallel to itself can be solved in termsof similarity variables. The numerical solution is comparedwith previous numerical and theoretical work on the problem.The final decay to the steady-state solution described by theBlasius velocity profile is exponential in character and isfound to be substantially in agreement with theoretical predictions.