Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-flows-fluctuations-and-complexity-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/1/b/solution

Put the stagnation point at the origin and the local tangent plane at . A regular Taylor expansion has no linear term because . The impermeable tangent plane imposes at to leading order, excluding mixed quadratic terms . For the illustrated axisymmetric approach, rotational symmetry in the tangent plane makes the and coefficients equal and removes . Finally the Laplace equation fixes the normal coefficient to minus twice the tangential one. Up to an irrelevant additive constant,
For incoming flow from , . This is a local leading form under the stated symmetry, not the exact universal potential near every possible wall stagnation point; a generic tangential strain can have unequal principal rates.
A streamline solves , , , hence , , . Eliminating the parameter gives
Each streamline lies in a meridional plane. With cylindrical radius , its shape is . The symmetry axis and wall are limiting invariant streamlines. A particle exactly on the incoming axis approaches the stagnation point asymptotically.

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