A finite difference-Galerkin finite element solution of compressible laminar boundary-layer flows

A finite difference-Galerkinfinite element method is presented for the solution of the two-dimensional compressible laminar boundary-layer flow problem. The streamwise derivatives in the momentum and energy equations are approximated by finite differences. An iterative scheme, due to the non-linearity of the problem, in conjunction with the Galerkin finite element method is then proposed for the solution of the problem through the boundary-layer thickness. Numerical results are presented and these are compared with other numerical and analytical solutions in order to show the applicability and the effectiveness of the proposed formulation. In all the cases here examined, the results obtained attained the same accuracy of other numerical methods for a much smaller number of points in the boundary-layer.