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IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics Advance Access published online on September 9, 2008
IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics, doi:10.1093/imamat/hxn027
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved.

The Kelvin transformation in potential theory and Stokes flow

George Dassios{dagger}

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

{dagger} Email: g.dassios{at}damtp.cam.ac.uk, gdassios{at}chemeng.upatras.gr

Received on February 8, 2008; Revision received February 8, 2008. Accepted on July 23, 2008

Kelvin's transformation is a non-linear map that, in some sense, preserves harmonicity. This property, which was the content of a letter sent by Kelvin to Liouville in 1845, provides a powerful machinery for solving particular potential problems in a very effective way. In the present work, we show that the basic theory can be extended to the biharmonic equation as well to the equations for irrotational and rotational Stokes flow. Hence, biharmonicity, stream functions and bistream functions are also preserved, in some sense, under the Kelvin transformation. We also demonstrate how the Kelvin-type theorems are interconnected with the relative Almansi-type decompositions. These results provide a way to solve analytically many problems in potential theory and Stokes flow which it is impossible to solve by the classical spectral method.

Keywords: Kelvin transformation; potential theory; axisymmetric stokes flow.

On leave from the University of Patras and Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas/Institute of Chemical Engineering-Highly Temperatures, Greece.


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