Skin-Friction and Heat-Transfer Characteristics of a Laminar Boundary Layer on a Cylinder in Axial Incompressible Flow

Abstract

A solution is given for the case of the laminar boundary layer of an incompressible fluid of constant properties on the exterior of a cylinder with flow parallel to the cylinder axis. This case differs from the Blasius solution for flow along a flat plate by considering the effect of the curvature in a plane transverse to the flow direction. The local skin-friction and heat-transfer coefficients for a Prandtl Number of 0.715 are evaluated and compared to the similar magnitudes for flat plate flow, and the effect of the curvature is shown to be significant in some practical cases. Recovery factors are evaluated, and this quantity is found to be insensitive to the effect of curvature of the boundary.