Abstract: | A numerical scheme is used to investigate boundary layer effects in a shock tube. The method consists of a mixture of Roe's approximate Riemann solver and central differences for the convective fluxes and central differences for the viscous fluxes and is implicit in one space dimension. Comparisons are made with experimental data and with solutions obtained via boundary layer equations. Examination of the calculated flow field explains the observed behaviour and highlights the approximate nature of boundary layer solutions. |