Per unit depth, the bubble volume is its area . At equilibrium its pressure equals , so . Hence
Continuity of fluid pressure at the interface gives . Consequently
Write the given pressure-dependent ratio of permeability of a porous medium to sponge thickness as
where is constant. The fluid pressure drop across the sponge is the hydrostatic pressure of the current,
because the air pressures above and below are equal. Therefore Darcy's law gives the downward volume flux per unit horizontal area as
Thus the sponge drainage obeys a power law in the current thickness, as described by pressure-dependent Darcy drainage.
For an incompressible parallel flow with base velocity and perturbation proportional to , divergence of the linearized momentum equations gives . At a no-slip boundary condition, streamwise momentum gives . The equation encodes how base shear generates perturbation fluid pressure.
A high-Reynolds number long-wave mode near a wall has a viscous layer of thickness , an order-one region following the base profile, and a pressure-decay region of thickness . The lower Airy function solution fixes velocity displacement and fluid pressure. The middle Rayleigh equation for inviscid shear flow transports these to the outer constant-velocity region. Matching its decaying pressure produces an Airy wall-layer matching determinant. For order-one amplitudes, constant leading middle pressure requires ; the distinguished balance gives .