Abstract:

Local self-similar solutions provide a reduced description of chemically reacting high-enthalpy boundary layers, although finite-rate chemistry limits strict global similarity. At a fixed station, the converged local solution serves as a controlled framework for probing how transport and chemistry entries reshape boundary-layer profiles. More specifically, the five-species reacting balances are recast as a flux-based first-order boundary value problem (BVP) and solved with source-term continuation for finite-rate chemistry. The solution is verified through three complementary checks, from the classical compressible Blasius limit to a finite-rate reacting benchmark. The transport entries C, C_{\lambda }, and C_{D_i}, together with the stationwise finite-rate chemistry-source entry, are then scaled one at a time, and the reconverged changes are reported as local logarithmic sensitivities. For the selected baseline station, the density-weighted viscous and heat-conduction entries give the largest local first-order thermal responses with nearly equal and opposite signs, the species-diffusion entry mainly redistributes composition, and the chemistry-source entry changes the thermal and radical states while weakly affecting velocity. The same pattern holds at the second, hotter station, supporting the interpretation that this near cancellation is a structural feature of the transformed energy balance rather than an artifact of the chosen baseline. Therefore, the resulting sensitivities compare how individual transport and chemistry pathways act within the coupled local balances, while retaining the operator responses of the local BVP rather than independent material-property perturbations or global mechanism rankings.

Key words: compressible boundary layer, high speed, chemical reaction, local self-similarity, Blasius equation, transport response