Steady flow past an oblate spheroid at small Reynolds numbers

The problem of uniform steady viscous flow over an oblate spheroid is solved in the low-Reynolds-number range 0.1≤Re≤1.0. The full Navier-Stokes equations are written in the stream function-vorticity form and solved numerically by means of the series-truncation method. Spheroids having axis ratio ranging from 0.245 to 0.905 are considered. The obtained drag coefficients are compared with previous analytical formulae which were based on the solution of the linearized Stokes equations. As expected, the deviation between the present results and the analytical formulae is small for low-Re flows, however, it increases with the increase of Re. The present results provide a measure for establishing the range of validity of the analytical solutions.