boundary layer


nounPhysics.
  1. the portion of a fluid flowing past a body that is in the immediate vicinity of the body and that has a reduced flow due to the forces of adhesion and viscosity.

Origin of boundary layer

1
First recorded in 1920–25

Words Nearby boundary layer

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use boundary layer in a sentence

  • From the amount of iridium found in the boundary layer, Walter Alvarez’s father Luis Alvarez, a Manhattan Project veteran and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, calculated the size of an asteroid that would be necessary to coat the globe in iridium.

British Dictionary definitions for boundary layer

boundary layer

noun
  1. the layer of fluid closest to the surface of a solid past which the fluid flows: it has a lower rate of flow than the bulk of the fluid because of its adhesion to the solid

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012