On the Use of Probability-Based Methods for Estimating the Aerodynamic Boundary-Layer Thickness

Abstract

In this paper, known probabilistic methods for estimating the thickness of the boundary layer of a two-dimensional laminar flow of viscous incompressible fluid are extended to three-dimensional laminar flows of a viscous compressible medium. Their applicability to the problems of boundary-layer stability is studied with the LOTRAN3 software package, which allows us to compute the position of laminar-turbulent transition in three-dimensional aerodynamic configurations.

Keywords

• compressible boundary layer
• boundary-layer thickness
• Bernoulli’s equation
• probability density function
• laminar-turbulent transition