Rotation about the vertical axis gives the inner surface the azimuthal speed . The leading Couette flow shear traction is opposing and has magnitude
Its moment arm about the vertical axis is , and . Consequently
Putting and using the supplied integral gives
This viscous shear torque opposes the rotation. Its concentric limit is , agreeing with the thin-gap limit of Torque in rotational Stokes flow between concentric spheres.
In the cylinder frame the wall moves at velocity . The parabolic lubrication gap and its natural stretched coordinate are
The wall values are and to leading order. The Couette-Poiseuille flow in a thin gap is therefore
and its constant flux is
The pressure recovery condition in lubrication flow gives . Since
it follows that
Differentiating the velocity profile gives the two surface shear stresses
Using and , the shear force exerted by the fluid on the wall is
and that exerted by the fluid on the cylinder is
They are not equal and opposite because pressure acting on the sloping cylinder surface also transfers tangential momentum. Indeed, integration by parts gives the cylinder's pressure force
so its total leading hydrodynamic force is .
The cylinder's excess weight per unit axial length is in the falling direction, and it has no gravitational couple about its axis. Force and couple balance therefore give
The second result follows because the leading viscous couple is .
For , write . Then
Thus is an odd pressure disturbance that vanishes at and at both infinities; its extrema occur at . The cylinder shear is positive near the narrowest point, negative in the outer parts of the gap, and vanishes at
The streamlines pass through the gap in the wall's direction overall. Pressure-driven backflow bends the interior streamlines and creates the two shear-reversal locations on the cylinder; the streamline sketch is symmetric under a half-turn combined with reversal of the flow direction.
For the final Couette flow, the lower and upper minimum gaps are and . If the cylinder translates at speed , the two leading lubrication drags are proportional to
The force-free condition gives
For , and the streamlines in the two equal gaps are mirror images with opposite directions. The subleading wall-driven couple must balance the leading rotational resistance , so
Unidirectional flow 2026-10-06
A unidirectional flow has velocity parallel to a single fixed direction, for example . If the speed is independent of the coordinate along that direction, the convective acceleration vanishes. The steady Navier-Stokes equation then reduces to a linear balance of the pressure gradient and viscosity, as in Couette flow and Poiseuille flow.