An application of Pohlhausen’s method to a problem of flow along an edge

Summary

The problem considered is that of the flow set up in a viscous incompres-sible fluid surrounding an infinite half plate, when the plate is accelerated from rest and moves parallel to its edge with velocity proportional tot ⁿ, wheret is the time. Pohlhausen’s method of approximation was used to reduce the basic partial differential equation to an ordinary non-linear differential equation, and this is effectively an equation which determines the skin friction on the plate. The purpose of the investigation here is to test the method by comparison with an exact solution, and for this reason numerical results are given for the casen=0 and compared with Howarth’s solution. The behaviour of the skin friction was found to agree well with that deter-mined by the exact solution; the maximum excess above the exact value is 13% near the edge of the plate, and this discrepancy becomes progressively smaller away from the edge.