Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2006
The flows caused by a uniformly expanding circular cylinder or sphere in a perfect gas at rest at various (from small to very large) expansion velocities are analysed by a method of successive approximations in which the first approximation represents the incompressible flow. The shock waves which form around the bodies are also treated. The results for a sphere, even up to the third approximation, agree closely with Taylor's (1946) calculations for all the expansion rates.