Past exam of the advanced fluid dynamics course of the University of Oxford / 2025 / 2 / e / Solution

For rotation about the hydrodynamic centre of a two-sphere dumbbell, the sphere centres have velocities ${\mathbf{v}}_i=\mathbf{\Omega }\times ({\mathbf{r}}_i-{\mathbf{r}}_c)$. Their resultant drag force in the free-draining approximation isEach sphere also experiences a spin drag torque, but its isolated rotation causes no net force. Those spin contributions therefore do not alter the cancellation.

This illustrates translation-rotation reciprocal coupling. About any fixed origin, write the fluid's rigid-body force and torque asThe transposed cross-blocks follow from the Lorentz reciprocal theorem. If pure translation causes zero torque about an origin for every $\mathbf{U}$, then $B^T=0$, hence pure rotation about that origin causes zero force. This implication is general for linear Stokes flow; the existence and leading location of such an origin here use the two-sphere geometry and the approximation in part c.