The steady two-dimensional flow over a rectangular obstacle lying on the bottom

We study a plane problem with mixed boundary conditions for a harmonic function in an unbounded Lipschitz domain contained in a strip. The problem is obtained by linearizing the hydrodynamic equations which describe the steady flow of a heavy ideal fluid over an obstacle lying on the flat bottom of a channel. In the case of obstacles of rectangular shape we prove unique solvability for all velocities of the (unperturbed) flow above a critical value depending on the obstacle depth. We also discuss regularity and asymptotic properties of the solutions. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved