The slow stationary flow of a micropolar liquid past a sphere

Summary

The paper is concerned with the slow stationary flow of a micropolar incompressible fluid past a sphere. Adopting the Stokesian approach of neglecting the inertial terms in the momentum equation and the bilinear terms in the balance of first stress moments, the equations are integrated and the flow parameters determined. The drag on the sphere is seen to be more in the present case than that in the case of non-polar fluids. It is found that in spite of the couple stress in the fluid, there is no resultant action by it on the sphere. Numerical work shows that the streamlines in the polar case have greater deflection towards the sphere than in the non-polar (or classical) case.