On the effects of boundary-layer growth on flow stability

Abstract

The stability of small travelling-wave disturbances in the flow over a flat plate is discussed. An iterative method is used to generate an asymptotic series solution in inverse powers of the Reynolds number Rx = Ux/v to the power one half. The neutral-stability boundaries given by the first two terms of this series are obtained and compared with experimental data. It is shown that the parallel flow approximation leads to a valid solution at very large Reynolds numbers.