Effect of nozzle boundary layers on rocket exhaust plumes.

Abstract

T expansion of a nozzle boundary layer into a vacuum has been treated numerically by Boynton. Following Weinbaum and Weiss and Weinbaum, Boynton treated the expansion as inviscid with the initial conditions specified by the viscous layer. Boynton demonstrated large differences in the plume properties when the influence of the supersonic portion of the nozzle boundary layer was included. In this Note, an effort is made to generalize Boynton's results and express the plume properties in terms of the boundary-layer thickness and nozzle exit conditions.