Short communication An approximate analytic solution of the Blasius problem Faiz Ahmad a, * , Wafaa H. Al-Barakati b a Centre for Advanced Mathematics and Physics, National University of Science and Technology, EME Campus, Peshawar Road, Rawalpindi, Pakistan b Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 15905 Jeddah 21454, Saudi Arabia Received 19 September 2007; received in revised form 26 December 2007; accepted 31 December 2007 Abstract The [4/3] Pade approximant for the derivative is modified so that the resulting expression has the required asymptotic behavior. This gives an analytical result which represents the solution of the classical Blasius problem on the whole domain. Ó 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 47.15.Cb; 02.30.Mv Keywords: Viscous flow; Blasius problem; Analytical solution; Pade approximation 1. Introduction The two dimensional steady state laminar viscous flow over a semi-infinite flat plate is modeled by the non- linear two-point boundary value Blasius problem f 000 ðgÞþ 1 2 f ðgÞf 000 ðgÞ¼ 0; g P 0 ð1:1aÞ f ð0Þ¼ 0; f 0 ð0Þ¼ 0; f 0 ð1Þ ¼ 1 ð1:1bÞ where g and f ðgÞ are, respectively, the dimensionless coordinate and the dimensionless stream function. Bla- sius [1] found the following analytic solution for the problem f ðgÞ¼ X 1 k¼0  1 2   k A k r kþ1 ð3k þ 2Þ! g 3kþ2 ; ð1:2Þ where A 0 ¼ A 1 ¼ 1 and 1007-5704/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cnsns.2007.12.010 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +92 3455334211. E-mail address: faizmath@hotmail.com (F. Ahmad). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation xxx (2008) xxx–xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/cnsns ARTICLE IN PRESS Please cite this article in press as: Ahmad F, Al-Barakati WH, An approximate analytic solution of the Blasius problem, Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simul (2008), doi:10.1016/j.cnsns.2007.12.010