Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

Lab 4: Aerodynamics

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

Airfoil Terminology

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

Angle of Attack

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

Lift and Drag

Lift is defined as a force normal to the relative wind Drag is a force parallel to the relative wind

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

How is Lift Produced ?

Air moving over the top of the wing has a higher velocity than the air on the bottom High Velocity = Low Pressure Low Velocity = High Pressure The resulting pressure difference causes a force that pushes up on the wing (aka lift)

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

How Angle of Attack and Camber Affect Lift

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

What About a Symmetric (no camber) Airfoil ?

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

Bottom Line: Cambered Vs Symmetric

Cambered airfoils produced lift at zero angle of attack.

Symmetric (no camber) airfoils do not produce lift at zero angle of attack

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

What Happens to an Airfoil when it Stalls ?

Flow over the top surface separates from the airfoil, resulting in a high pressure wake region

Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors ENG H192

Sources of Additional Airfoil Information

How Airplanes work: http://www.howstuffworks.com/airplane4.htm NASAs FoilSim II airfoil simulation program: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K12/airplane/foil2.html Airfoil Database (Hint: look at low Reynolds number airfoils for the upcoming lab) : http://www.aae.uiuc.edu/mselig/ads/coord_database.html