Marginal separation of a three-dimensional boundary layer on a line of symmetry

Abstract

The marginal separation of a laminar incompressible boundary layer on the line of symmetry of a three-dimensional body is discussed. The interaction itself is taken to be quasi-two-dimensional but the results differ from those for a two-dimensional boundary layer in that the effect of the gradient of the crossflow is included. Solutions of the resulting integral equation are computed for two values of the additional parameter, and comparisons made with an analytical prediction of the asymptotic form as the length of the separation bubble tends to infinity. The occurrence of the phenomenon is confirmed by an examination of the results of an existing numerical integration of the boundary-layer equations for the line of symmetry of a paraboloid.