If a body enters a viscous-inviscid fluid layer near a wall, then significant effects can be felt from the presence of incident vorticity, viscous forces and nonlinear forces. The focus here is on the response in the outer edge of such a wall layer. Nonlinear two-dimensional unsteady behaviour is examined through modelling, computation and analysis applied for a thin body travelling streamwise upstream or downstream or staying still relative to the wall. The wall layer with its balance between inviscid and viscous effects interacts freely with the body movement, causing relatively high magnitudes of pressure on top of the body and nonlinear responses in the gap between the body and the wall. The study finds explicit solutions for the motion of the body, separation of the flow arising near the wall and possible instabilities occurring over the length scale of any short body.

Steady two-dimensional fluid flow over an obstacle is solved using complex variable methods. We consider the cases of rectangular obstacles, such as large boulders, submerged in a potential flow. These may arise in geophysics, marine and civil engineering. Our models are applicable to initiation of motion that may result in subsequent transport. The local flow depends on the obstacle shape, slowing down in confining corners and speeding up in expanding corners. The flow generates hydrodynamic forces, drag and lift, and their associated moments, which differ around each face. Our model replaces the need for ill-defined drag and lift coefficients with geometry-dependent functions. We predict smaller flow velocities to initiate motion. We show how a joint-bound boulder can be transported against gravity, and analyse the influence of a wake region behind an isolated boulder.

An analysis is performed to study the influence of local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) on unsteady MHD laminar boundary layer flow of viscous, incompressible fluid over a vertical stretching plate embedded in a sparsely packed porous medium in the presence of heat generation/absorption. The flow in the porous medium is governed by Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model. A uniform heat source or sink is presented in the solid phase. By applying similarity analysis, the governing partial differential equations are transformed into a set of time dependent non-linear coupled ordinary differential equations and they are solved numerically by Runge-Kutta Fehlberg method along with shooting technique. The obtained results are displayed graphically to illustrate the influence of different physical parameters on the velocity, temperature profile and heat transfer rate for both fluid and solid phases. Moreover, the numerical results obtained in this study are compared with the existing literature in the case of LTE and found that they are in good agreement.

An investigation is carried out on mixed convection boundary layer flow of an incompressible and electrically conducting viscoelastic fluid over a linearly stretching surface in which the heat transfer includes the effects of viscous dissipation, elastic deformation, thermal radiation, and non-uniform heat source/sink for two general types of non-isothermal boundary conditions. The governing partial differential equations for the fluid flow and temperature are reduced to a nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations which are solved analytically using the homotopy analysis method (HAM). Graphical and numerical demonstrations of the convergence of the HAM solutions are provided, and the effects of various parameters on the skin friction coefficient and wall heat transfer are tabulated. In addition it is demonstrated that previously reported solutions of the thermal energy equation given in [1] do not converge at the boundary, and therefore, the boundary derivatives reported are not correct.

This paper investigates the laminar boundary layer flow of nanofluid induced by a radially stretching sheet. Nanofluid model exhibiting Brownian motion and thermophoresis is used. Series solutions for a reduced system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations are obtained by homotopy analysis method (HAM). Comparative study between the HAM solutions and previously published numerical results shows an excellent agreement. Velocity, temperature and mass fraction are displayed for various values of parameters. The local skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number and the local Sherwood number are computed. It is observed that the presence of nanoparticles enhances the thermal conductivity of base fluid. It is found that the convective heat transfer coefficient (Nusselt number) is decreased with an increase in concentration of nanoparticles whereas Sherwood number increases when concentration of nanoparticles in the base fluid is increased.

The well-known Falkner–Skan equation is one of the most important equations in laminar boundary layer theory and is used to describe the steady two-dimensional flow of a slightly viscous incompressible fluid past wedge shaped bodies of angles related to $\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }\!\!\pi\!\!\text{ /2}$, where $\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }\,\in \,\mathbb{R}$ is a parameter involved in the equation. It is known that there exists ${{\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }}^{*}}\,<\,0$ such that the equation with suitable boundary conditions has at least one positive solution for each $\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }\,\ge \,{{\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }}^{*}}$ and has no positive solutions for $\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }\,<\,{{\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }}^{*}}$ . The known numerical result shows ${{\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }}^{*}}\,=\,-0.1988$ . In this paper, ${{\text{ }\!\!\lambda\!\!\text{ }}^{*}}\,\in \,[-0.4,\,-0.12]$ is proved analytically by establishing a singular integral equation which is equivalent to the Falkner–Skan equation. The equivalence result provides new techniques to study properties and existence of solutions of the Falkner–Skan equation.