A new Reliable Numerical Algorithm Based on the First Kind of Bessel Functions to Solve Prandtl–Blasius Laminar Viscous Flow over a Semi-Infinite Flat Plate

In this paper, a new numerical algorithm is introduced to solve the Blasius equation, which is a third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation arising in the problem of two-dimensional steady state laminar viscous flow over a semi-infinite flat plate. The proposed approach is based on the first kind of Bessel functions collocation method. The first kind of Bessel function is an infinite series, defined on ℝ and is convergent for any x ∈ℝ. In this work, we solve the problem on semi-infinite domain without any domain truncation, variable transformation basis functions or transformation of the domain of the problem to a finite domain. This method reduces the solution of a nonlinear problem to the solution of a system of nonlinear algebraic equations. To illustrate the reliability of this method, we compare the numerical results of the present method with some well-known results in order to show the applicability and efficiency of our method.