Compressible boundary layers with sharp pressure gradients

The work of this thesis was undertaken as a C.A.S.E. award project in collaboration with Rolls-Royce to examine compressible laminar boundary layers with sharp adverse pressure-gradients. Much of the work is devoted to the solution of two important particular problems. The first flow considered is that along a semi-infinite flat plate with uniform pressure when X X₀ being so chosen that the boundary layer is just on the point of separation for all X > X₀. Immediately downstream of X₀ there is a sharp pressure rise to which the flow reacts mainly in a thin inner sublayer; so inner and outer asymptotic expansions are derived and matched for the stream function and a function of the temperature. Throughout the thesis the ratio of the viscosity to the absolute temperature is taken to be a function of x, the distance along the wall, alone, and the Illingworth-Stewartson transformation is applied. The Prandtl number, σ, is taken to be of order unity and detailed results are presented for σ= 1 and 0.72. The second flow considered is that along a finite flat plate where the transformed external velocity U₁(X) is chosen such that U₁(X) = u₀(-X/L)[super]ε, where O< ε <