Shear flow past a flat plate

Summary The controversy over the induced pressure gradient in shear flow is re-examined in the context of general bounding. It is shown that the results reported by Ludford and this author in two earlier papers are indeed typical near the leading edge. However far downstream they are only valid in the presence of walls. In particular two new effects arise; for weak bounding logarithmic terms appear in the inviscid pressure and a resonance with the first eigensolution occurs. For the symmetric case Toomre and Rott's result is recovered.