Skin Friction and Heat Transfer for Laminar Boundary-Layer Flow With Variable Properties and Variable Free-Stream Velocity

Numerical solutions of the momentum and energy equations are presented for particular types of laminar boundary-layer flow analogous to the Hartree “wedge flows.” Variation of the viscosity and of the thermal conductivity is considered under the circumstances of no dissipation, favorable pressure gradient, and the product of conductivity and density a constant. The solution is based on approximate representations of the velocity and temperature profiles in the boundary layer and these are of such character that the labor of calculation is minimized and the accuracy of the results preserved. The differential equations are reduced to two algebraic equations which rapidly yield the skin friction and the heat transfer in terms of the wall to free-stream temperature ratio for the desired value of Prandtl number. Numerical results are given for a range of wedge flows with gases of Prandtl number 0.70 and 1.0. These results reveal that when the free-stream velocity is variable the temperature difference between the wall and the free stream exerts a substantial effect on the velocity distribution in the boundary layer and on the skin-friction coefficient. Alternatively, the heat-transfer coefficient is not affected radically. A calculation method is presented for the determination of the heat transfer and skin friction for a flow with an arbitrary variation of velocity over an isothermal surface. This method utilizes the results of the present analysis for the variable property wedge flows.