A study of the asymptotic behaviour of the external fringes of compressible, laminar boundary layers of a dissociating gas

The structure of the hypersonic laminar boundary layer of an ideal dissociating gas far from the wall surface is analysed analytically for the case of (i) frozen flow and (ii) equilibrium flow corresponding to the local pressure and temperature, respectively. For the equilibrium flow also numerical results are given. It is observed that the transition zone between the viscous and the outer fringe of the boundary layer, which exists in the perfect gas case, is smeared out here due to the coupling between the imperfect nature of the gas and the viscosity of the gas.On leave from N.A.L., Bangalore, India.