2023/10/25 by Rahul Agrawal, Agrawal, Rahul, Sanjeeb Bose +5 · 1 citation
Engineering · #Computational Fluid Dynamics and Aerodynamics #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Turbomachinery Performance and Optimization
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.16337
openalex publication_date 2023/10/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Thwaites (1949) developed an approximate method for determining the evolution of laminar boundary layers. The approximation follows from an assumption that the growth of a laminar boundary layer in the presence of pressure gradients could be parameterized solely as a function of a flow parameter, m = θ2/ν(dUe)/(ds), thus reducing the von Karman momentum integral to a first-order ordinary differential equation. This method is useful for the analysis of laminar flows, and in computational potential flow solvers to account for the viscous effects. However, for turbulent flows, a similar approximation for turbulent boundary layers subjected to pressure gradients does not yet exist. In this work, an approximate method for determining the momentum thickness of a two-dimensional, turbulent boundary layer is proposed. It is shown that the method provides good estimates of the momentum thickness, when compared to available high-fidelity simulation data, for multiple boundary layers including both favorable and adverse pressure gradient effects, up to the point of separation. In the limit of high Reynolds numbers, it is possible to derive a criterion for the onset of separation from the proposed model which is shown to be in agreement with prior empirical observations (Alber, \textit9th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 1971). The sensitivity of the separation location with respect to upstream perturbations is also analyzed through this model for the NASA/Boeing speed bump and the transonic Bachalo-Johnson bump