Short-time dynamics of an elliptic cylinder moving in a viscous incompressible free-surface flow

The joint motion of a viscous incompressible fluid and a completely submerged elliptic cylinder is analyzed at short times. The cylinder is assumed to start from rest and move horizontally at a constant acceleration. A feature of the problem is that, at high accelerations, the fluid becomes detached from the cylinder surface and a cavity is formed. The problem is generalized to an elliptic cylinder floating on the surface of a viscous fluid.