Comparisons Between Inverse Boundary-Layer Calculations and Detailed Measurements in Laminar Separated Flows

Summary A brief description is given of an accurate numerical method for the inverse calculation of both attached and separated laminar, two-dimensional, incompressible boundary-layers with prescribed displacement thickness. The method employs downstream-marching, using an approximation to the convection terms in the reverse-flow region to stabilise the computation. Results of three calculations made by this method, using measured distributions of displacement thickness as input, are presented and compared with the corresponding measured velocity profiles and distributions of external velocity. Very close agreement between theory and experiment is found in general, giving further evidence of the validity of the boundary-layer approximation in separated flows of limited extent.