Steady streaming in an oscillatory inviscid flow

Steady streaming, arising within a fluctuating flow field, is commonly asso ciated with attenuation due to viscosity. In this paper we show that such s treaming may be induced within an inviscid fluid when the underlying fluctu ating flow is the result of a nonconservative body force. In such a situati on the induced streaming is significantly greater than that in a viscous fl uid brought about by a fluctuating conservative body force. The vehicle we choose to illustrate this is a unidirectional buoyancy force, otherwise kno wn as g-jitter. In particular the flow about a heated sphere in an otherwis e gravity-free environment is analyzed. The relationship with the analogous viscous-flow problem is investigated. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physi cs.