Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-viscous-flow-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/2/c/i/solution

At zero surface shear stress, the solution connected to part (a) is
Indeed, it has , and . Insert the regular perturbation into the nonlinear ordinary differential equation. The terms are
The coefficient of therefore gives
Expanding the surface boundary conditions and the far-field matching condition gives
The printed limit is a sign error. It is present in the native PDF on paper page 3, not introduced by transcription. The fluid occupies , the inner variable is , and part (b)(iii) correctly matches at . We retain that physical domain throughout. A change to the positive coordinate would also change the differential equation and surface derivative signs; it cannot be made by changing only the far-field sign.
The inequality ensures that effects discarded at order in the boundary-layer scaling are smaller than the retained order- perturbation. The inequality justifies this regular perturbation. The two conditions control different approximations.

New to topics? Read the docs here!