Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2006
An aspect of the laminar far wake behind a symmetrical two-dimensional body placed in a uniform shear flow is described theoretically by means of the Oseen type of successive approximation, in which the shear is regarded as a small perturbation on a uniform stream. The expression for the stream function is determined up to the third approximation both in and outside the wake region, and the region in which the results of the perturbation analysis are valid is also determined. The stream function is found to contain four constants which cannot be determined from the boundary conditions for the far wake. The analysis also shows that the spreading of the wake is greater towards the side of smaller velocity than the side of larger velocity, the asymmetrical feature of the velocity defect becoming more evident as the distance from the obstacle is increased: the point which shows the maximum velocity defect shifts to the low-velocity side.