A Cautionary Note on the Thermal Boundary Layer Similarity Scaling for the Turbulent Boundary Layer

Wang and Castillo have developed empirical parameters for scaling the temperature profile of the turbulent boundary layer flowing over a heated wall in the paper X. Wang and L. Castillo, J. Turbul., 4, 1(2003). They presented experimental data plots that showed similarity type behavior when scaled with their new scaling parameters. However, what was actually plotted, and what actually showed similarity type behavior, was not the temperature profile but the defect profile formed by subtracting the temperature in the boundary layer from the temperature in the bulk flow. We show that if the same data and same scaling is replotted as just the scaled temperature profile, similarity is no longer prevalent. This failure to show both defect profile similarity and temperature profile similarity is indicative of false similarity. The nature of this false similarity problem is discussed in detail.