A discussion of cone and flat-plate Reynolds numbers for equal ratios of the laminar shear to the shear caused by small velocity fluctuations in a laminar boundary layer

By use of the linear theory of boundary-layer stability and Schlichting's formula for the maximum amplification of a disturbance, an approximate relation is derived between the Reynolds number on a cone and the Reynolds number on a flat plate for equal closeness to transition. The indication is that the ratio of the cone Reynolds number for transition, based on the distance to the cone apex, to the plate Reynolds number for transition, based on the distance to the leading edge, is not in general equal to 3, as has been suggested by other investigators, but varies from 3 when transition occurs at the minimum critical Reynolds number to unity when transition occurs at a large multiple of the critical Reynolds number

Charts and Tables for Estimating the Stability of the Compressible Laminar Boundary Layer with Heat Transfer and Arbitrary Pressure Gradient

The minimum critical Reynolds numbers for the similar solutions of the compressible laminar boundary layer computed by Cohen and Reshotko and also for the Falkner and Skan solutions as recomputed by Smith have been calculated by Lin's rapid approximate method for two-dimensional disturbances. These results enable the stability of the compressible laminar boundary layer with heat transfer and pressure gradient to be easily estimated after the behavior of the boundary layer has been computed by the approximate method of Cohen and Reshotko. The previously reported unusual result (NACA Technical Note 4037) that a highly cooled stagnation point flow is more unstable than a highly cooled flat-plate flow is again encountered. Moreover, this result is found to be part of the more general result that a favorable pressure gradient is destabilizing for very cool walls when the Mach number is less than that for complete stability. The minimum critical Reynolds numbers for these wall temperature ratios are, however, all larger than any value of the laminar-boundary-layer Reynolds number likely to be encountered. For Mach numbers greater than those for which complete stability occurs a favorable pressure gradient is stabilizing, even for very cool walls