Nikola P. Petrov, Lu Lu, Charles R. Doering Variational bounds on the energy dissipation rate in body-forced shear flow (1890K, Postscript) ABSTRACT. A new variational problem for upper bounds on the rate of energy dissipation in body-forced shear flows is formulated by including a balance parameter in the derivation from the Navier-Stokes equations. The resulting min-max problem is investigated computationally, producing new estimates that quantitatively improve previously obtained rigorous bounds. The results are compared with data from direct numerical simulations.