Numerical solutions of the classical Blasius flat-plate problem

This paper presents a numerical study of the non-linear differential equationaf′′′+ff′′=0,where a prime denotes differentiation with respect to the similarity variable η and a is a parameter. For a = 1 and a = 2 this equation is a form of the Blasius relation for the flat-plate flow in fluid mechanics. Several numerical solution are obtained using a Runge-Kutta algorithm for high-order initial value problems for 1 ⩽ a ⩽ 2.