Simulation by a source of a thin jet from a body

An exact analytic solution is found to the following plane hydrodynamic problem. An unbounded flow of an ideal incompressible fluid flows around a plate BB' placed at right angles to the velocity vector of the flow at infinity. The pressure on the free boundary P is equal to the pressure in the flow. From an opening in the center of the plate, a jet with flow rate Q from a cavity with pressure P₀ encounters the flow head-on. As a result of the solution, it is found that for fixed width of the opening the values of Q allowed by the scheme are limited. In the limiting case Q = 0 Chaplygin's flow is obtained with stagnation region at the front [1], and in the limiting case Q = Q_max a jet out of a cavity with pressure P₀ into a cavity with pressure P. As Q varies in this interval, the total drag, regarded as the drag of the plate and the chamber from which the jet emerges, takes a minimal value at a certain point. If the width of the opening tends to the length of the slab, the problem of the collision of two jets is obtained; if the width of the opening tends to zero (Q o), the problem of jet flow past a slab with a source is obtained. It is shown that the replacement of the jet by the source gives a good approximation in both the sense of the force characteristics and in the sense of the behavior of the free streamlines.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Hekhanika Shidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 47–54, September–October, 1979.We thank L. I. Sedov for his interest in the work and G. Yu. Stepanov for proposing the method of solution and for a helpful discussion.