Boundary Layer

The fundamental, practically the most important branch of the modern mechanics of a viscous fluid or a gas, is that branch which concerns itself with the study of the boundary layer. The presence of a boundary layer accounts for the origin of the resistance and lift force, the breakdown of the smooth flow about bodies, and other phenomena that are associated with the motion of a body in a real fluid. The concept of boundary layer was clearly formulated by the founder of aerodynamics, N. E. Joukowsky, in his well-known work "On the Form of Ships" published as early as 1890. In his book "Theoretical Foundations of Air Navigation," Joukowsky gave an account of the most important properties of the boundary layer and pointed out the part played by it in the production of the resistance of bodies to motion. The fundamental differential equations of the motion of a fluid in a laminar boundary layer were given by Prandtl in 1904; the first solutions of these equations date from 1907 to 1910. As regards the turbulent boundary layer, there does not exist even to this day any rigorous formulation of this problem because there is no closed system of equations for the turbulent motion of a fluid. Soviet scientists have done much toward developing a general theory of the boundary layer, and in that branch of the theory which is of greatest practical importance at the present time, namely the study of the boundary layer at large velocities of the body in a compressed gas, the efforts of the scientists of our country have borne fruit in the creation of a new theory which leaves far behind all that has been done previously in this direction. We shall herein enumerate the most important results by Soviet scientists in the development of the theory of the boundary layer.