Skin friction and velocity profile family for compressible turbulentboundary layers

Abstract

The paper presents a general approach to constructing mean velocity profiles for compressible turbulent boundary layers with isothermal or adiabatic walls. The theory is based on a density-weighted transformation that allows the extension of the incompressible similarity laws of the wall to the compressible regions. The velocity profile family is compared to a range of experimental data, and excellent agreement is obtained. A self-consistent skin friction law, which satisfies the proposed velocity profile family, is derived and compared with the well-known Van Driest II theory for boundary layers in zero pressure gradient. The results are found to be at least as good as those obtained by using the Van Driest II transformation.