Theoretical face pressure and drag characteristics of forward-facing steps in supersonic turbulent boundary layers

A theoretical investigation of the pressure distributions and drag characteristics was made for forward facing steps in turbulent flow at supersonic speeds. An approximate solution technique proposed by Uebelhack has been modified and extended to obtain a more consistent numerical procedure. A comparison of theoretical calculations with experimental data generally indicated good agreement over the experimentally available range of ratios of step height to boundary layer thickness from 7 to 0.05.