Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / Paper 2 / 16 / b / ii / Solution

Take the outward orientation of the complete closed surface, including its flat base. The constant part of the vector field has zero divergence, and the radial part has divergence $3\mathbf{a}\cdot \mathbf{b}$. The divergence theorem gives its flux as that constant times the solid hemisphere's volume, $2\pi R^3/3$:The constant field may have nonzero flux through the curved part alone, but its curved and base contributions cancel on the closed surface.