Technology & Engineering
Wing Aerodynamics
Wing aerodynamics refers to the study of the airflow around and over an aircraft's wings. It involves understanding how air pressure, velocity, and density affect lift, drag, and other aerodynamic forces. Engineers use this knowledge to design wings that optimize aircraft performance, stability, and fuel efficiency. Understanding wing aerodynamics is crucial for developing efficient and safe aircraft designs.
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5 Key excerpts on "Wing Aerodynamics"
eBook - PDF- Ajoy Kumar Kundu(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
3 Aerodynamic Considerations 3.1 Overview This chapter is concerned with the aerodynamic information required at the concep-tual design stage of a new aircraft design project. It provides details that influence shaping and other design considerations and defines the various parameters integral to configuring aircraft mould lines. Any object moving through air interacts with the medium at each point of the wetted (i.e., exposed) surface, creating a pressure field around the aircraft body. An important part of aircraft design is to exploit this pressure field by shaping its geometry to arrive at the desired performance of the vehicle, including shaping to generate lifting surfaces, to accommodate payload, to house a suitable engine in the nacelle, and to tailor control surfaces. Making an air-craft streamlined also makes it looks elegant. Aeronautical engineering schools offer a series of aerodynamic courses, starting with the fundamentals and progressing toward the cutting edge. It is assumed that readers of this book have been exposed to aerodynamic fundamentals; if so, then readers may browse through this chapter for review and then move on to the next chapter. Presented herein is a brief compilation of applied aerodynamics without detailed theory beyond what is necessary. Many excellent textbooks are available in the public domain for reference. Because the subject is so mature, some nearly half-century-old introductory aerodynamics books still serve the purpose of this course; however, more recent books relate better to current examples.
eBook - PDF- Dominic J. Diston, Peter Belobaba, Jonathan Cooper, Allan Seabridge, Peter Belobaba, Jonathan Cooper, Allan Seabridge(Authors)
- 2024(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
3 Fixed-Wing Aerodynamics 3.1 Introduction 3.1.1 Fixed Wings and Aerodynamics Fixed-Wing Aerodynamics is probably the most widely discussed and explained topic in the aeronautical literature (including innumerable online sources). It is the technical basis for the vast majority of air vehicles and it has the virtue of being easy to visualise and, therefore, easy to understand. The handbook approach has been developed over many, many decades and has been distilled down to small number of methods for calculating lift, drag, and pitching moment. Accordingly, it is ideal for introductory courses in any undergraduate programme. However, typical course content might not cover practical methods of calcu- lation (especially for drag) and, almost certainly, it will not deal with aerodynamic load dis- tributions. So, this chapter will cover typical course content plus these additional topics. 3.1.2 What Chapter 3 Includes This chapter includes: • Aerodynamic Principles (covering aerofoils, force/moment definitions, aerodynamic centre, and wing geometry) • Aerodynamic Model of an Isolated Wing (defining methods for calculating lift, drag, and pitching moment) • Trailing-Edge Controls (defining methods for calculating incremental aerodynamics and hinge moments for plain flaps) • Factors affecting Lift Generation (focusing on sideslip, aircraft rotation, structural flexibility, ground effect, and indicial effects) • Lift Distribution (specifying Diederich’s Method) • Drag Distribution (summarising the mathematical principles of Lifting Line Theory) 55 Computational Modelling and Simulation of Aircraft and the Environment: Aircraft Dynamics, First Edition, Volume II. Dominic J. Diston. © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2024 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 3.1.3 What Chapter 3 Excludes This chapter excludes: • Aerodynamic interaction or interference between a wing and anything on the aircraft. • Leading-edge controls. • Trailing-edge controls other than plain flaps.
- Arthur Rizzi, Jesper Oppelstrup(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The science of aerodynamics involves two apparently separate, but in fact related, studies. Fundamental aerodynamics is concerned with the qualitative and quantitative examination of air in motion – with its displacement, velocity, and acceleration. Applied aerodynamics concerns the physical forces exerted by air on the bodies immersed therein through the motion of the air relative to the body. There are four major questions to be addressed: (1) How is the aerodynamic force created to keep an aircraft in the air, and how does this force vary with shape, attitude, and speed? This is the problem of lift. (2) What is the propulsive force necessary to keep the aircraft moving through the air? This problem is associated with the air resistance or drag, which is fundamental to the general study of aircraft performance. (3) How does the force and its distribution on the aircraft vary in flight? This is the problem of the stability and control of aircraft. (4) How do the airloads during flight deform the airplane into the flight shape? This is the engineering field of (static) aero-elasticity. Aerodynamics is seen by some as a branch of applied mathematics; others consider it largely an experimental subject. Mathematical analysis alone, however, is ineffective, as its necessary simplifying assumptions prove useful only in some situations, but they are invalid in others. On the other hand, to proceed only by experiment limits one’s knowledge to very specific situations and inhibits the making of reliable predictions. The aerodynamicist, therefore, needs good enough theories to combine both of these approaches, using analysis to deepen and extend their knowledge. Continuous experimenting is required to check the validity of the assumptions and to improve understanding of the physics. Answers are always to some extent approximate, and the conclusions drawn are often limited to certain classes of situations.
eBook - PDF- Antonio Ferri, D. Küchemann, L. H. G. Sterne(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Pergamon(Publisher)
This approach is adopted in Section 2 of this paper in order to define the class of wings to be considered. 6 J. A. BAGLEY The requirement for high aerodynamic efficiency in the cruising condi-tion is interpreted as a requirement for a specified lift-drag ratio, and it is shown that practical aeroplanes to meet this requirement fall into a fairly limited range of geometries. Consequently, the later sections are concerned mainly with the drag of wings and wing-fuselage com-binations which fall into this limited family. The drag forces on any flying body can be separated into those due to skin friction and those arising from the summation of the pressures on the surface of the body. Methods of estimating these normal-pressure forces, or of designing body shapes on which they will be small, can be divided into two categories. One group depends on the calculation of the surface pressure distribution itself, which can then be integrated to give the pressure drag; this may be categorized as the near field approach to design. The second group utilizes what may be called the far field approach, where the drag is identified with the transport of momentum through a large control surface surrounding the body. The momentum transport can then be related to the distributions of volume and lift on the body, without considering the details of the surface pres-sure distribution. By considering as the control surface enclosing the configuration a cylinder of large radius with its axis parallel to the stream, it can be shown that at subsonic speeds the only transport of momentum is through the downstream end of the cylinder (see, for example, Heaslet and Lomax, Section D.14 of Ref. 3). This surface can be taken infinitely far downstream of the body; it then becomes the so-called Trefftz plane, and the drag corresponding to the momentum transport through this surface in inviscid flow is the vortex drag of the configuration associated with the lift distribution.
eBook - PDF- Antonio Filippone(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
4 Aerodynamic Performance Overview In this chapter, we present first-order methods, based on the principle of compo-nents, to determine the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft. One is tempted to develop methods of high accuracy, based on the physics. These methods are inevitably complex and computer intensive. The requirement for methods of general value inevitably limits the accuracy on any single aircraft. Aerodynamic data of real airplanes are closely guarded. We show how these low-order methods, with a compromise between physics and empiricism, yield results of acceptable accuracy. We deal with aerodynamic lift in § 4.1 . The wide subject of aerodynamic drag ( § 4.2 ) is split into several sub-sections that present practical methods. The analysis of the aerodynamic drag has a number of separate items, including a transonic model for wing sections ( § 4.3 ) to be used in the propeller model (Chapter 6 ), transonic and supersonic drag of wing–body combinations and bodies of revolution ( § 4.4 ), and buffet boundaries ( § 4.5 ). We present a short discussion on the aerodynamic derivatives in § 4.6 . We expand the aerodynamic analysis to the estimation of the drag of a float-plane in § 4.7 . We finish this chapter with a simple analysis of the vortex wakes and the aircraft separation distance ( § 4.8 ). KEY CONCEPTS: Aircraft Lift, Aircraft Drag, Transonic Drag Rise, Supersonic Drag, Bodies of Revolution, Buffet Boundaries, Aerodynamic Derivatives, Float-Planes. 4.1 Aircraft Lift The determination of the lift characteristics of the wing ultimately depends on the amount of information that is available. Often only the planform shape is known. The twist distribution and the camber of the wing sections, essential for a realistic calculation of the aerodynamics, are most likely unknown. We attempt to overcome this problem with the following simplified analysis.
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