Extensions of d'Alembert's paradox for elongated bodies

Abstract

The steady incompressible irrotational flow past a three-dimensional body of any shape generates no forces. The historic paradox refers only to drag, but lift is also zero, which has been known but not emphasized. The new material concerns a body with a long constant cross section, such as a train. The final results for forces and moments are very simple. With zero angle of attack, we show that the force vectors on the front and rear parts of the body are each (asymptotically) equal to zero, if the pressure is referred to the freestream pressure. The lift and drag coefficients, based on frontal area, vanish proportionally to d/l and (d/l)2, respectively, where d/l is the diameter-to-length ratio. This applies to any shape of the cross section, and of the ends. With an angle of attack, the nose and tail forces are nonzero but depend only on the angle of attack and the cross section's added mass per unit length. The pitching moment is proportional to the total added mass and the sine of twice the angle of attack. The present results clarify slender-body theory results. The practical consequence is that, for a long body with constant cross section, the shape of the nose or the tail is irrelevant to its own 'partial' drag and lift, and to the pitching moment.