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The effects are investigated of including inertial terms, in both small- and large-surface-tension limits, in a remodelling of the influential and fundamental problem first formulated by Moffatt and Pukhnachov in 1977: that of viscous thin-film free-surface Stokes flow exterior to a circular cylinder rotating about its horizontal axis in a vertical gravitational field.An analysis of the non-dimensionalizations of previous related literature is made and the precise manner in which different rescalings lead to the asymptotic promotion or demotion of pure-inertial flux terms over gravitational-inertial terms is highlighted. An asymptotic mass-conserving evolution equation for a perturbed-film thickness is derived and solved using two-timescale asymptotics with a strained fast timescale. By using an algebraic manipulator to automate the asymptotics to high orders in the small expansion parameter of the ratio of the film thickness to the cylinder radius, consistent a posteriori truncations are obtained.Via two-timescale and numerical solutions of the evolution equation, new light is shed on diverse effects of inertia in both small- and large-surface-tension limits, in each of which a critical Reynolds number is discovered above which the thin-film evolution equation has no steady-state solution due to the strength of the destabilizing inertial centrifugal force. Extensions of the theory to the treatment of thicker films are discussed.

The commonly observed phenomenon of steady, viscous, free-surface flow on the outer surface of a rotating cylinder is investigated by means of an iterative, integral-equation formulation applied to the Stokes approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations. The method of solution places no restriction on the thickness of the fluid layer residing on the cylinder surface; indeed, results are presented for cases where the layer thickness is of the same order of magnitude as the cylinder radius.Free-surface profiles and free-surface velocity distributions are presented for a range of flow parameters. Where appropriate, comparisons are made with the results of thinfilm theory; excellent agreement is observed.For all film thicknesses and surface tensions, results show a high degree of symmetry about a horizontal axis even though the gravity field is vertical. A proof is presented that, for vanishing surface tension, this is a consequence of the Stokes approximation.

Solutions of the biharmonic equation governing steady two-dimensional viscous flow of an incompressible Newtonian fluid are obtained by employing a direct biharmonic boundary integral equation (BBIE) method in which Green's theorem is used to reformulate the differential equation as a pair of coupled integral equations which are applied only on the boundary of the solution domain.An iterative modification of the classical BBIE is presented which is able to solve a large class of (nonlinear) viscous free surface flows for a wide range of surface tensions. The method requires a knowledge of the asymptotic behaviour of the free surface profile in the limiting case of infinite surface tension but this can usually be obtained from a perturbation analysis. Unlike space discretisation techniques such as finite difference or finite element, the BBIE evaluates only boundary information on each iteration. Once the solution is evaluated on the boundary the solution at interior points can easily be obtained.