Similar Solutions in Magnetohydrodynamics

Abstract

T J ECENTLY, Reeves and Kippenhan found a particular class of •*-V. similar solutions of the two-dimensional equations of motion and energy of an incompressible, viscous fluid. The equations analyzed were not subjected to boundary-layer simplifications. With the steadily increasing interest in magnetohydrodynamics, the question thus arose of the possibility of applying the "classical" similarity hypothesis to the Navier-Stokes equations including M H D effects, as well as to the equation governing the magnetic field. This has been done for boundary-layer problems in Refs. 2-7. In this note a class of solutions is found for two dimensional flow, without the boundary-layer assumptions.