ME304 Advanced Engineering Analysis I

Assignment #6
Fall 2012 - D.L. Hitt
Due Date: Thursday, November 1
1. A Conducting Sphere in a Uniform Electric Field. A grounded conducting sphere of radius a
is placed in an (eectively) innite uniform electric eld E = Ez. The potential for a uniform electric
eld in the z-direction is given by Er cos . The boundary condition at the surface of the grounded
sphere is that
u(a, ) = 0.
(a) Use a perturbation scheme for the total potential
u = Er cos + u

to solve for the perturbation potential u

.
(b) Create a contour plot of the potential eld in the vicinity of the sphere.
(c) Compute an expression for the corresponding electric eld

E = u.
(d) Create either a vector plot or streamline plot of the electric eld lines.
2. Laplaces Equation for a Spherical Shell. Consider the axisymmetric Laplaces equation dened
on a spherical shell dened by a < r < b. If the boundary conditions are
u(a, ) = f() u(b, ) = 0
Show that the solution is
u(r, ) =

n=0
A
n
b
n

r
b

b
r

n+1

P
n
(cos )
with
A
n
b
n

a
b

b
a

n+1

=
2n + 1
2

0
f()P
n
(cos ) sin d
3. The Origin Value as a Surface Average in the Spherical Laplace Equation. For the Dirichlet
problem on a sphere of radius a with the boundary condition
u(a, , ) = f(, ),
show that the value of u at the origin (r = 0) is equal to the average value of f over the surface of the
sphere. Note that this is the spherical analog to the result derived for 2-D polar coordinates.
4. A Fully 3D Spherical Problem. In general, using series of spherical harmonics can become quite
complicated; however, it is manageable in closed form if only a few terms are retained. In this problem
we will do this to demonstrate the basic functionality of the spherical harmonics. Consider Laplaces
equation on a sphere of unit radius with the boundary condition
u(1, , ) = f(, )

100 /4 < < /4

0 otherwise
Here we will con side a three-term approximation to the solution, i.e., involving the spherical harmonics
Y
m

for = 0, 1, 2 and m = l . . . .
ME304 - F12 Assignment #6
(a) Conclude that the form of the solution will be
u(r, , ) =
2

=0

m=
A
,m
r

Y
m

(, )
with
A
,m
= 100

/4
/4

0
Y
m

(, )

sin d d
(b) From the denition of the spherical harmonics, write down the explicit expressions for Y
m

for
= 0, 1, 2 and m = l . . .
(c) Using the expressions for the spherical harmonics in the preceding step, determine via explicit
integration the following table of coecients:
m=-2 m=-1 m=0 m=1 m=2
0 - - 50

- -
1 - 25

3 0 25

3 -
2 100

5
6
0 0 0 100

5
6
(d) Using the coecients determined in Part (b), combine the terms to arrive at the following ap-
proximation for the solution
u(r, , ) 25 +
75

2
2
r sin cos +
125

r
2
sin
2
cos 2
(e) Evaluate your approximate solution for r = 1 and = /6, /4, /2 and plot these as a function
of . How does it compare with the actual boundary condition function f?
ME304 - F12 Assignment #6