Wakes behind towed and self-propelled bodies: Asymptotic theory

Solutions for the (steady or unsteady) wake flows induced by a localized single force or a force doublet in a uniform stream are obtained in Oseen approximation for two-dimensional (planar) as well as for three-dimensional (axisymmetric) flows. These solutions are compared with the steady solutions obtained previously by other authors in boundary layer approximation. The straightforward approach to the general problem of the flow induced by any distribution of localized forces which was developed here, can be used to obtain the vorticity and stream function distributions for the flows generated by forcing of more complicated spatial symmetry in both two and three dimensions. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.