Stability of a supersonic boundary layer over a surface with sublimation

The paper presents a theoretical study for a supersonic boundary layer over a flat plate in a stream of air at Mach number M = 2 under the conditions of surface sublimation. The sublimation-prone material is naphthalene (C10H8). Calculations demonstrated that at a higher surface temperature the mass flowrate of naphthalene evaporation is increasing. This reduces the wall temperature in comparison with a similar flow without sublimation. The high molecular mass of naphthalene (vs. air) and reduction of wall temperature due to the wall material evaporation creates a higher density of the binary gas mixture (air and naphthalene vapor) near the wall. This modification of the boundary layer profiles induces a significant reduction of instability growth rate. This fact was confirmed by calculations based on the linear stability theory. It was found that boundary layer stabilization occurs for growing sublimation surface temperature; it becomes a maximum near the triple point temperature of the coating material. The eN method gives the estimates of the Reynolds number for laminar-turbulent transition. This shows a theoretical possibility of extension of the laminar boundary layer above a model with sublimation coating.