On the plane problem of the flow around a submerged beam

Abstract

We consider the problem of the steady flow of an ideal heavy fluid around a submerged beam. The problem is obtained from the free-boundary problem of the flow past a submerged obstacle in the limit of bodies of vanishing thickness. We introduce a special Sobolev space formulation of the problem in term of a perturbed stream function and prove its unique solvability for every value of the unperturbed flow velocity, with the possible exception of a discrete set depending on the geometry of the domain. The asymptotic properties of the solutions are discussed.