A modular method for estimation of velocity and temperature profiles in high-speed boundary layers

The variation of fluid properties due to viscous heating affects the mean velocity and Reynolds stress profiles in compressible turbulent boundary layers, thereby also altering the resultant skin friction and wall heat transfer. In the current work, we present a method based on the work of Huang et al. [AIAA Journal 1993 31:9, pp. 1600-1604] that estimates the boundary layer velocity and temperature profiles, and therefore also the skin friction and heat transfer coefficients, for a given Mach number, Reynolds number, and wall thermal condition. The proposed method is modular in the sense that it works with multiple variable-property scaling formulas (or, "velocity transformations"), velocity-temperature relationships, viscosity-temperature relationships and equations-of-state. The current method has been shown to make predictions with improved accuracy as compared to the current state-of-the-art, the Van Driest II method.