Evaluation of the Barenblatt-Chorin-Prostokishin power law for turbulent boundary layers

For pipe flow Barenblatt, Chorin, and Prostokishin have advanced a specific power law equation for velocity profiles. Recently they have extended the work to allow the law to be used for zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers. The extension uses a newly defined boundary layer thickness. This Brief Communication evaluates the proposal and finds that the method is very sensitive and can produce profiles that do not closely match the data. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.