Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-theoretical-mechanics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2010/a/1/c/solution

For a steady unidirectional field , incompressibility gives . Thus and the convective acceleration vanishes. The transverse momentum equations give , so . The axial equation is
Its left side is independent of and its right side independent of , so both equal a constant . No slip against the translating wall gives on the boundary. Thus the asserted Poisson problem follows.
For the circular pipe, the axisymmetric solution is
It satisfies the boundary value and . Integrating over the cross-section gives
Therefore the laboratory-frame volume flux vanishes precisely when
For a pressure decrease in the positive axial direction, this requires upstream wall translation.

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