A Method of Solving Supersonic Laminar Boundary-Layer Separation and Its Application to Wedges and Curved Surfaces

Abstract

By use of a quartic velocity profile with one of its coefficients varying along the boundary layer, a technique is developed to calculate the general characteristics of adiabatic separated flows. The technique is based on the integral solution of the differential equations of laminar compressible boundary layers utilizing the energy-momentum concept and on expressions derived from the notion of a dividing streamline in the separated region. Detaching, central, and reattaching regions are defined which, by their combination, embrace most known forms of flow separation. The derived equations are here applied to the case of separated laminar boundary layers on compression corners and curved surfaces.