Boundary-layer thickness and base pressure

A theory for predicting base pressure in two-dimensional supersonic flow (Tanner, 1980, 1984) relates changes in the base-pressure coefficient to changes in the boundary-layer thickness. The theory predicts that the difference in the base-pressure coefficient relative to the difference in the momentum thickness will become zero at any freestream Mach number at the limiting boundary-layer thickness value of 0.003. The theory correlates well with the results of Goecke (1978) obtained from flight-measured base pressures taken at Mach numbers of 2.20, 2.50, and 2.85.