Antiplane perfect plasticity 2026-10-14
In antiplane perfect plasticity, velocity and shear stresses depend only on . Force balance is , the fixed yield surface is , and the associated flow rule is with . Differentiating the yield equation in each coordinate and combining it with equilibrium shows that are constant along characteristic curves tangent to . For example . Nonzero regular yield gradient is needed for a characteristic direction.
Axisymmetric viscous-sheet stretching equations Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
For thickness , radial velocity and external pressure , the leading Newtonian fluid stress tensor and incompressibility giveRadial force balance on an annular sector includes the inward projection of hoop traction and external pressure on the sloping broad faces. Together with conservation of mass it yields
Balanced forces and constant velocity 2026-10-14
Consider a stipulated ideal cart modeled as a point mass of mass on a horizontal track in a laboratory inertial frame. Its initial position is and its initial velocity is to the right. Independent devices exert horizontal forces and on this same cart. Its upward support force balances its downward gravitational weight; no other forces contribute. Rotation and deformation are excluded from this model.After , the cart is at , still moving right at . Starting the same model at rest instead would leave it at rest. Force balance determines the zero acceleration, while the initial velocity determines whether the cart moves.
For the plotted model, both horizontal devices are switched off simultaneously at , with no impulse. The support and gravitational weight remain balanced. The individual horizontal forces change, but their sum stays zero on both sides of the switch, so the velocity stays continuous and unchanged. Switching off just one device would be a different model with a nonzero net external force.
Full-film journal-bearing whirl 2026-10-06
A freely translating inner axle with prescribed positive angular velocity and downward load has full-film journal bearing force balance equationswhere are the squeeze resistance of an eccentric journal bearing. Rotation supplies tangential fluid force . The equilibrium lies horizontally to the right and satisfies . Linearization there has imaginary eigenvalues: the prescribed rotating axle continuously supplies energy, so viscous dissipation does not imply settling. For an initially concentric axle, putting and gives the closed orbitThis follows by eliminating time and integrating . It applies to the leading inertia-free full-film model; adding cavitation, constraints or finite-length leakage changes the prediction.
For a small-slope inextensible filament with prescribed transverse coordinate , tangential-to-normal resistance ratio , and head drag parameter , transverse force balance gives . The mean axial swimming speed is . The mean material longitudinal deformation velocity vanishes for a periodic inextensible stroke anchored longitudinally at its base. A moving base offset must be distinguished from a coordinate measured relative to the actual attachment point.
Inclined-bed sediment threshold 2026-10-05
For locally bed-tangent drag force and an upslope angle , a spherical-grain force balance gives . The small-slope term is . A horizontal drag force instead changes the normal contact force and gives a different slope correction.
For circular Couette flow with , the rotating-frame reduction of circular viscoelastic shear gives shear rate . The total shear stress is , and the azimuthal minus radial normal-stress difference is in the stress convention where . Radial force balance without inertia is , which integrates to the displayed pressure. The pressure constant is undetermined by these equations.
Mechanical equilibrium 2026-10-14
Mechanical equilibrium requires force balance for the mechanical displacements that are allowed. Two uniform fluids separated by a freely moving, unloaded, frictionless piston with equal face areas require equal pressures. A supported piston can sustain a pressure difference, and a fluid in gravity instead obeys hydrostatic equilibrium. For an upward height coordinate , that balance is , where is mass density and is the downward gravitational acceleration. Mechanical equilibrium alone does not establish thermal equilibrium or chemical equilibrium.
Optical trap drag calibration 2026-10-18
Translate the liquid past a bead held in a stationary harmonic optical trap. At steady mean position, take as the local fluid velocity relative to the fixed trap and positive downstream. Averaging the overdamped force balance givesFor the invented Optical trap Langevin calibration example, predicts , , and . Reversing reverses the mean shift but leaves the ideal thermal variance unchanged. A symmetric speed sweep tests the offset and the linear force range; the slope determines if position is calibrated.
Near a wall, is not the appropriate drag without a boundary correction; record bead height and direction of motion. Stage velocity must correspond to the local fluid velocity after transients have settled. Escape under increasing flow estimates a maximum holding force in that geometry, whereas small-displacement drag calibration estimates the local spring constant. They are different quantities. The atomic force microscopy similarly needs a calibrated spring constant to convert a measured deflection to force, but its cantilever is a physical spring rather than this optical field.
Optical trap relaxation time 2026-10-14
For a bead in a stationary viscous liquid, linear drag often dominates inertia on the observed timescale. Neglecting both inertia and the random thermal force, the deterministic force balance givesHere is the drag coefficient and the optical trap relaxation time: the time to reduce the deterministic displacement by a factor . The bead approaches equilibrium without oscillation in this overdamped model. The approximation requires times long compared with the inertial time and, for separated timescales, , where is the bead's mass. For a no-slip spherical bead of radius in an unbounded liquid of dynamic viscosity , Stokes drag law gives . Nearby walls change that drag coefficient.
For example, , and give and . A displacement of gives a restoring force of magnitude , and its deterministic displacement drops to after one optical trap relaxation time. These are predictions for the stated model, not measured trajectories.
Local harmonic optical trap: potential well, restoring force and deterministic overdamped relaxation
. Details. The figure uses , and , with arbitrary positive reference length and stiffness . Thus , and, from , . At fixed drag, greater stiffness gives both a steeper potential energy well and faster relaxation. Thermal Brownian motion is omitted from these deterministic curves.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 44 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
In a slender symmetric viscous sheet, the two broad faces have zero tangential traction. A cross-thickness variation of on the thickness scale would produce leading shear , whereas is smaller by the square of the aspect ratio. The leading transverse momentum balance and the shear-free conditions therefore give : write .
Incompressibility gives . Symmetry about sets the integration constant to zero, soThe normal traction on either nearly vertical face matches the ambient hydrostatic pressure, giving to leading order. The Newtonian fluid stress tensor then yieldsThe factor four is the planar extensional resistance, as in the planar viscous-sheet stretching equations, rather than the factor three for uniaxial extension with two contracting transverse directions.
The following slice diagram shows all axial-force contributions per unit -width; the end arrows indicate positive tensile stress and reverse if that signed stress is negative.
The two end tractions have net -component . The normal pressure on the inclined side faces contributes , and gravitational acceleration gives the weight . Hence force balance isSubstitute the stress expression and :soKeeping the side-pressure component is essential: dropping it would retain an incorrect dependence on the arbitrary ambient pressure level. The remaining equation from conservation of mass isIt follows either by integrating incompressibility across the moving faces or directly from the face kinematic boundary condition.
When effective gravitational acceleration vanishes, is independent of . It equals the applied excess tensile force , with ambient pressure removed from the end loading. Along a material element labeled by its initial position ,Integration gives uniform material thinning under planar-sheet tension:A material interval conserves its area: . ThusWith the specified fixed material origin, integrate the latter relation to obtainThese formulas hold while the material thickness remains positive.
For the quadratic initial profile, put . If , evaluating the integral at givesFor it instead givesFor a constant positive pulling force, first reaches the minimum initial thickness atBoth expressions for diverge there. Write . If , the inverse tangent tends to and , givingFor ,This is finite-time extension of a quadratically thickened sheet. With nonzero , the dominant extension comes from the small material region near the thickness minimum, where the integrand is proportional to . Its width shrinks like , giving an integrated divergence . The fixed ends are asymptotically far away in those local coordinates, so does not depend on . For a uniform sheet the entire material interval has denominator , giving the stronger divergence and retaining its length in . The singularity is a prediction of the ideal slender-sheet model as its minimum thickness tends to zero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 53 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
An isotropic simple fluid has local stress determined by the deformation history of the material element. A viscometric flow is one whose relative deformation history is that of steady simple shear flow, up to rigid changes of frame. At a given element the shear rate is constant along its history, although it can differ between elements. This includes the locally simple-shear kinematics used in standard viscometric measurements.
Use the component-first velocity gradient . The first two Rivlin-Ericksen tensors areIn the axes of a steady shear , the relative deformation gradient over a lag is , since . The material history is determined by , and its tensor symmetries exclude and stress components. The remaining symmetric stress consists of an isotropic part, one shear component, and two independent normal-stress differences. The relevant matrices areThus span the allowed stress components. Material isotropy and reversal of the shear show that their scalar coefficients depend on . Define the viscometric functions bySolving for the matrix coefficients givesThis is an exact steady-viscometric representation, rather than an assumption that the fluid is everywhere a second-order fluid. The shear viscosity measures the shear resistance, while and measure the first and second normal-stress differences generated by shear. Their zero-rate values are understood as limits when these exist. An isotropic pressure changes neither normal difference.
For a flow in the lubrication approximation with gap , longitudinal scale and speed , the shear-rate scale is . The viscous shear force per unit volume scales as . Quadratic viscoelastic normal stresses scale as ; their longitudinal gradients, and the comparable mixed-component corrections, contribute forces of scale . Therefore the normal-stress smallness in lubrication criterion isEquivalently, the thin-gap aspect ratio must multiply the shear-based elastic parameter to give a small quantity: . Normal stresses need not themselves be smaller than the shear stress; it is their effect on the leading force balance that matters. If the flow changes on an additional short time scale , the term also requires for its neglect. Material coefficients should be evaluated at the characteristic shear rate.
Now take positive cylinder rotation, measure counterclockwise from the rightward horizontal, and let increase outward through the film. The tangent has upward component , so the tangential gravitational acceleration is . To leading order in , neglect inertia and higher-order hydrostatic or capillary pressure gradients, and write . Tangential force balance and the shear-free free surface givehenceThe wall shear stress is . It opposes rotation on the uphill side and assists it on the downhill side.
For a power-law fluid, . Its inversion must retain the sign:Integrating with the no-slip boundary condition yieldsThe volume flux per unit axial length is . The integrated bracket is , so the power-law coating on a rotating cylinder hasAt the gravitational term vanishes by continuity. Steady mass conservation makes independent of .
On the uphill half, put and . The local flux is , withIt has a unique maximum atA positive coating must carry the same steady flux at every angle. The tightest local bound occurs at , not on the downhill side, where the flux increases monotonically with thickness. ConsequentlyFor the thinner positive root on the uphill side connects through to the unique downhill root, giving a periodic leading-order coating profile. At the limiting flux the two uphill roots meet at ; it is the maximum flux of this lubrication model, with a possible limiting corner resolved by neglected higher-order effects. For the check is . All these conclusions require the resulting film to remain thin enough for the lubrication approximation and for the neglected normal stresses and inertia to satisfy their scaling restrictions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 78 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let and . The supporting-hyperplane inequality for the convex viscous dissipation potential givesThe stress is symmetric because its argument is a symmetric rate-of-strain tensor, so . Subtracting the two functional values yieldsIntegration by parts turns the first integral intoInertialess force balance is . The variation vanishes on , and the traction is on . Thus both the volume and boundary contributions cancel exactly, proving the convex viscous potential minimum principleOnly convexity, not strict convexity, is required, so no uniqueness follows just from this argument. For incompressible flow, admissible trial velocities must also be divergence free. The pressure term then does no work, because ; the same proof applies to the deviatoric constitutive law.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 78 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For , differentiation in the symmetric tensor space gives . Therefore the Bingham fluid viscous dissipation potential givesThe deviatoric stress is trace free since is trace free; an arbitrary pressure reaction completes the Cauchy stress tensor.
At the yield term is not differentiable, and the correct relation is the subdifferential condition. A symmetric trace-free stress is admissible there ifThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality shows that this is equivalent to ; necessity follows by choosing proportional to . Hence the no-strain-rate restriction isThe quadratic term has zero derivative at zero and does not change this restriction. This is the unyielded part of the Bingham plastic law.
For flow along the plates, write , and take as the pressure-drop magnitude. The only nonzero rate-of-strain tensor entries are , so and the yielded shear stress law isForce balance gives . The prescribed odd, continuous shear stress fixes its integration constant to zero, provingFor the inverse shear law is
The original PDF also calls odd. That assumption is inconsistent with a nonzero flow between identical fixed plates: the inverse shear law makes odd, whereas the derivative of an odd is even. Both can hold only if , and the no-slip wall values then give . Thus with the literal odd-velocity requirement, there is no admissible flowing solution when . The standard pressure-driven velocity is even; replacing that erroneous parity yields the intended profile below.
If , the whole gap is unyielded and the fixed no-slip walls force . Otherwise let . The plug flow of a yield-stress fluid occupies . In the upper yielded layer , and integration from givesIn the plug the velocity is the constant , and reflection gives the lower layer. The complete plane Poiseuille flow of a Bingham fluid answer isThe profile is continuous with continuous first derivative at the plug boundaries, vanishes at both walls and tends to the ordinary parabolic profile when . If signed pressure gradients of either direction are allowed, the threshold is , and reversing the gradient reverses the velocity.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 78 6 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Put , , , and write , . In antiplane perfect plasticity, force balance and the fixed yield surface giveDifferentiate the second relation in . Along the proposed characteristic curve,Similarly, differentiating the yield relation in givesThe associated flow rule and give , . ConsequentlyThus both shear stresses and the antiplane velocity are constant on each characteristic. Assume a regular yield gradient . Since the stress is constant on a characteristic, its tangent has fixed direction, so the curves are straight lines, apart from arbitrary reparameterization by .
In a centred antiplane plastic fan those lines emanate from the crack tip. Henceand a radial line at angle from the axis must haveThe crack faces have normal in the direction, so traction freedom requires there. The fan joins the adjacent constant crack-face stress region along the characteristic carrying that stress. Its boundary line therefore satisfieswith the direction interpreted directly when the denominator vanishes. The original PDF reverses this ratio. Its displayed ratio is , whereas the tangent of an angle from the axis is . The distinction cannot be removed while retaining both its stated characteristic direction and its angle convention.
For the elliptic yield surface, with ,On the forward fan , choose the loading branch . The radial tangent condition gives . Substituting in the yield equation and choosing the positive square root gives exactlyFor the endpoints, use the equivalent nonsingular expressionsThey give on the upper boundary ray and on the lower one. The correct boundaries are , the vertical line through the tip. At either of these stress states and , so the characteristic tangent is vertical. The printed boundary ratio would instead give a horizontal line, providing a concrete counterexample to that intermediate assertion.
Extend the upper and lower rear sectors by the constant stresses and respectively; these satisfy the traction-free crack faces and match the fan stresses continuously. The reversed loading has all stresses negated. To check equilibrium within the forward fan, differentiation givesand hence . The yield equation is satisfied identically as well.
Finally , while . The associated flow rule reduces tofor this stress branch. Any such angular velocity field is constant along the rays and has constant values in the adjacent rear sectors. Its magnitude and angular variation require velocity or loading data beyond the specified traction-free faces; the local stress fan alone does not determine them.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 75 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the quasisteady lubrication approximation for the premelting film between the disk and the underlying ice. The ice is anchored to the lower plane; new ice formed from water supplied through this upper film raises the disk. Let be its upward separation rate, the premelted thickness, the liquid dynamic viscosity, a common ice/water mass density, the specific latent heat of fusion, and the absolute bulk melting temperature. As usual in this leading model, neglect the ice–water density difference, pressure-dependent changes in due to a common phase pressure, inertia and edge corrections. The imposed thermal field is taken as maintained by an external heat supply/removal system, so no additional heat-conduction bottleneck is introduced.
Write , and . The Clapeyron pressure relation for equal-density phases makes the pressure difference across the solid–liquid interfaceThis thermomolecular pressure is the repulsive stress transmitted through the film. To calculate a definite rate one also needs a film-thickness constitutive law. In the standard nonretarded dispersion-force model, define as the magnitude of the repulsive effective Hamaker constant, with its sign convention specified byHere is disjoining pressure, not the permeability used in the preceding question. The sign of an effective Hamaker coefficient depends on the three materials; the positive parameter here denotes an interaction that stabilizes a premelted film. The problem does not specify numerically, so it must remain a defined material parameter.
Take the reservoir pressure at the rim to be . With no-slip boundary conditions on both sides of the thin film, the radial volume flux per unit width isA disk moving upward at rate needs water volume per unit time to freeze below radius . Regularity on the axis and mass conservation therefore give , or . ThusDefine , so . Integrating inward from givesWater is drawn inward by a pressure deficit; its viscous resistance reduces the load that the thermal force can support. The net normal stress on the disk is . Let be the downward apparent load after subtracting ordinary buoyancy. For an ideal thin disk with negligible buoyant volume, , where is gravitational acceleration. If a finite displaced volume is known, use its submerged weight instead; the stated mass and radius alone do not determine that volume.
The disk force balance isConsequently the premelted-film lifting of a disk rate isFor this gives the requested expression in terms of the mass. Every additional symbol in this formula has been defined above. The growing-ice lifting branch exists only when the bracket is positive.
At the threshold the required water flux and viscous pressure deficit vanish. The maximum load supportable at the specified radial thermal profile is thereforeThe factor is the area average of the parabolic undercooling, not an arbitrary geometrical correction. At equality the lift rate is zero; strictly positive lift requires . There is no radius-only, temperature-independent maximum load in this ideal model: one must specify the imposed undercooling or a physically admissible range of it.
For a fixed positive load define and . The lifting branch isIt begins at zero, increases with , and is concave downward because . Below threshold no positive steady heave is possible: the thermomolecular force is too weak to support the load. The mathematical continuation to negative is not a prediction of upward ice-driven separation there.
Increasing undercooling increases the available thermal pressure, but it also thins the premelting film. In the inverse-cube disjoining pressure model, , so the hydraulic conductance decreases in exact inverse proportion to the driving scale. The remaining load correction tends to zero and the rate approaches a plateau:For positive load this is approached from below, not attained at finite undercooling. With zero load the reduced model gives the same constant rate wherever its thin-film assumptions hold.
Two limits of the calculation are worth making explicit. First, the formal diverges at the warm rim, so a narrow outer connection to bulk water replaces the thin-film solution there; this leading model assumes that its contribution to the integrals is negligible. Second, very large undercooling produces a molecularly thin film and eventually invalidates continuum lubrication theory and the simple dispersion-force law. Thus the plateau is the maximum within the stated ideal constitutive model, not an unrestricted extrapolation for real water.
If a different molecular interaction is intended, the result is not universal. For any supplied equilibrium in the equal-density model the direct force calculation instead givesThis displays exactly where the film law enters. The closed formula and plateau above use the conventional repulsive inverse-cube law; premelting alone, without that material law, would not determine a unique rate curve.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 ii Paper 2 36B Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
In the lubrication regime the thin region has longitudinal scale , since the height increase becomes comparable with there. The characteristic shear is , so force per axial length scales as . Negligible inertia, no slip, no cylinder rotation, and full wetting are understood.
Use a frame translating with the cylinder. The wall moves with velocity , the cylinder is stationary, and the gap is . Lubrication momentum gives , , soContinuity makes constant. Equal ambient pressures at both infinities give , hence . ThereforeThe vertical velocity, with the wall condition , follows explicitly from incompressibility:It gives , consistently with a horizontally translating cylinder in the lab frame.
The wall shear is . With , its integral isForce balance equates this wall force to the required cylinder force at leading order; the pressure and viscous stresses on remote boundaries make no leading contribution. This is the cylinder translating parallel to a wall in a thin gap result. The asymptotic sign denotes the approximation implicit in the parabolic gap, rather than an exact finite-gap cylinder formula.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 76 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The inextensible fibre constraint gives . Write the fibre direction and its transverse unit direction asThen and . In plane strain, incompressibility gives . Decomposing the second column of the deformation gradient along therefore gives , where . HenceThis is a local rotation followed by simple shear.
The compatibility of the deformation map requires . Since and , this isTaking components gives the compatibility relations for incompressible inextensible-fibre plane strain:Along a reference curve,Thus is constant when . The equivalent condition also covers . Its current tangent is proportional to , so these transverse curves are straight wherever the deformation is regular.
To construct the stress with zero body force, specify the local shear stress as the material's function or functional of under simple shear. The normal stresses are constraint reactions: incompressibility supplies pressure, and the inextensible fibre constraint supplies fibre tension. WriteThe compatible geometry has with , so , , and . Resolving along the two directions givesThe triangular equilibrium construction for inextensible-fibre plane strain now determines by integration along fibres and then along transverse curves. Thus any regular compatible deformation has a local zero-body-force stress construction once the shear law and suitable boundary integration data are supplied. There is no additional constitutive normal-stress law to specify: the two normal components are fixed by force balance and boundary tractions. This does not assert that arbitrary separately prescribed boundary tractions can accompany an arbitrary deformation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 76 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write for the Kirchhoff stress tensor and for the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor. Since and for the velocity gradient,Therefore the upper-convected rate as a stress push-forward is
For the simple shear flow, put and . The velocity gradient and rate-of-strain tensor areTheir upper-convected derivative givesDenote the symmetric extra stress by , and the relaxation time by to distinguish it from . The Oldroyd-B model in the question becomesFor the steady constitutive response, , and . HenceA constant imposed shear rate can still have startup transients; these values describe the steady response.
For circular Couette flow , the velocity gradient in the orthonormal polar basis isFor completeness, in fixed Cartesian coordinates let and . Then and . Along a particle, the polar basis rotates at angular speed . Its contribution to the material derivative cancels the rigid-rotation part of in the upper-convected derivative. The rotating-frame reduction of circular viscoelastic shear therefore leavesThe flow direction is now and the gradient direction is . With , the same simple-shear constitutive calculation gives
Angular force balance implies is constant. Integrating gives . With and ,The radial force balance is . Thus the inertialess Oldroyd-B circular Couette pressure isThe constant is fixed by a pressure or normal-traction boundary condition.





