Equilibrium convective heat transfer in several real gases was investigated. The gases considered were air, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and argon. Solutions to the similar form of the boundary-layer equations were obtained for flight velocities to 30,000 ft/sec for a range of parameters sufficient to define the effects of pressure level, pressure gradient, boundary-layer-edge velocity, and wall temperature. Results are presented for stagnation-point heating and for the heating-rate distribution. For the range of parameters investigated the wall heat transfer depended on the transport properties near the wall and precise evaluation of properties in the high-energy portions of the boundary layer was not needed. A correlation of the solutions to the boundary-layer equations was obtained which depended only on the low temperature properties of the gases. This result can be used to evaluate the heat transfer in gases other than those considered. The largest stagnation-point heat transfer at a constant flight velocity was obtained for argon followed successively by carbon dioxide, air, nitrogen, and hydrogen. The blunt-body heating-rate distribution was found to depend mainly on the inviscid flow field. For each gas, correlation equations of boundary-layer thermodynamic and transport properties as a function of enthalpy are given for a wide range of pressures to a maximum enthalpy of 18,000 Btu/lb.

The stagnation-point convective heat transfer to an axisymmetric blunt body for arbitrary gases in chemical equilibrium was investigated. The gases considered were base bases of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, helium, neon, argon, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and methane and 22 gases mixtures composed of the base gases. In the study, enthalpies ranged from 2.3 to 116.2 MJ/kg, pressures ranged from 0.001 to 100 atmospheres, and the wall temperatures were 300 and 1111 K. A general equation for the stagnation-point convective heat transfer in base gases and gas mixtures was derived and is a function of the mass fraction, the molecular weight, and a transport parameter of the base gases. The relation compares well with present boundary-layer computer results and with other analytical and experimental results. In addition, the analysis verified that the convective heat transfer in gas mixtures can be determined from a summation relation involving the heat-transfer coefficients of the base gases. The basic technique developed for the prediction of stagnation-point convective heating to an axisymmetric blunt body could be applied to other heat-transfer problems.