Integral Methods Applied to a Compressible Boundary Layer on an Insulated Flat Plate Parallel to the Wind

Citation

Kirkwood, Thomas Frederick (1947) Integral Methods Applied to a Compressible Boundary Layer on an Insulated Flat Plate Parallel to the Wind. Engineer's thesis, California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/ERYV-B305. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-12082008-082433

Abstract

The effect of compressibility upon the boundary layer thickness and wall shearing stress on an insulated flat plate parallel to the wind is investigated. Integral methods are used to investigate both laminar and turbulent boundary layers. In order to simplify the calculations, only the limiting cases of small Mach numbers and very large Mach numbers are investigated in the laminar case. In the turbulent case only small Mach numbers are considered due to the present lack of understanding of supersonic turbulence. It is found that in the subsonic laminar boundary layer, the wall shear stress is approximately independent of Mach number while the boundary layer thickness increases with Mach number. For large Mach numbers in the laminar case it is found that the wall shear stress is proportional to M[subscript o, superscript -.24] and the boundary layer thickness to M[subscript o, superscript 1.76]. In the turbulent case, where only small Mach numbers are investigated, both the shear stress end boundary layer thickness are found to decrease with Mach number.

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