Calculation of the Potential Flow with Consideration of the Boundary Layer

The three-dimensional steady laminar flow of a viscous incompressible fluid around an arbitrary body shall be treated. This can be done by solving the Navier-Stokes equation using a finite difference method. If the Reynolds number is high, this very cumbersome method can be replaced by another one taking account of the fact, that in this case the viscous effects essentially are confined to the boundary layer at the body surface and to free shear layers. Thus the solution of the problem can be composed of that of the inviscid outer flow, i.e. the potential flow, and of the viscous inner flow (see for example Kevorkian and Cole [1]). The first can be calculated by boundary element methods, the second by finite difference methods.