MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

AE341 AERODYNAMICS I

LABORATORY REPORT IV:

MEASUREMENT OF DRAG BY WAKE VELOCITY MEASUREMENT

Submitted by:

Oğuzhan Aydın / 1942812

Kerim Erdem Alp / 1949346

Assistants : Harun Levent Şahin

Süleyman Altınışık

Professor : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dilek Funda Kurtulus

ABSTRACT

The momentum equation of a flow along a channel passing through a cylindrical body
with a simple balance is investigated in this experiment. The direction between flow
upstream and downstream leads us to the drag coefficient, applying the momentum
equation and equalizing the net forces acting on the control volume leads us to
calculate the total friction acting on the cylinder.

1. INTRODUCTION

If an object is located in a flow field, it begins to see a force against the motion of the object.
That’s called drag force in aerodynamics. In this experiment, we measure the drag force on the
circular cylinder using the wake velocity measurements. There is a uniform upcoming air flow at
the inlet of the control volume. At the exit, on the other hand, the velocity profile is affected by
cylinder and these velocity values are to be measured in this experiment. After knowing the static
pressures and velocity profiles at the inlet and exit, using proper laws leads us to compute the
drag force.

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 2. THEORY
2.1. What is wake? Explain its mechanism.

Wake turbulence is a disturbance in the atmosphere that forms behind

an aircraft as it passes through the air. It includes various components, the most
important of which are wingtip vortices and jetwash. Jetwash refers simply to the
rapidly moving gases expelled from a jet engine; it is extremely turbulent, but of
short duration. Wingtip vortices, on the other hand, are much more stable and can
remain in the air for up to three minutes after the passage of an aircraft. It is
therefore not true turbulence in the aerodynamic sense, as this would be chaotic.
Instead, it refers to the similarity to atmospheric turbulence as experienced by an
aircraft flying through this region of disturbed air.
Wingtip vortices occur when a wing is generating lift. Air from below the wing is
drawn around the wingtip into the region above the wing by the lower pressure
above the wing, causing a vortex to trail from each wingtip. The strength of wingtip
vortices is determined primarily by the weight and airspeed of the
aircraft.[1] Wingtip vortices make up the primary and most dangerous component of
wake turbulence.
Wake turbulence is especially hazardous in the region behind an aircraft in
the takeoff or landing phases of flight. During take-off and landing, aircraft operate
at high angle of attack. This flight attitude maximizes the formation of strong
vortices. In the vicinity of an airport there can be multiple aircraft, all operating at
low speed and low altitude, and this provides extra risk of wake turbulence
with reduced height from which to recover from any upset.

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 2.2. Derive Bernoulli’s equation starting from integration of Euler’s
equation on a Lamb surface. Give details about assumptions and
special cases.

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 2.3. What is Pitot tube? Explain briefly.

A Pitot tube, also known as Pitot probe, is a pressure measurement instrument

used to measure fluid flow velocity. The pitot tube was invented by
the French engineer Henri Pitot in the early 18th century and was modified to its
modern form in the mid-19th century by French scientist Henry Darcy It is widely
used to determine the airspeed of an aircraft, water speed of a boat, and to measure
liquid, air and gas flow velocities in certain industrial applications. The pitot tube is
used to measure the local flow velocity at a given point in the flow stream and not
the average flow velocity in the pipe or conduit Errors induced due to the location of
the measuring tube on the aircraft, and the effect of localised airflow upon it, are
known as "position errors" and need to be factored into resultant calculations.

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 2.4. Derive the drag force and drag coefficient on a circular cylinder
using the conservation of momentum.

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7
The drag coefficient CD does not restrict the results to pressure drag only ; but the
combined effect of both the pressure and skin friction forces are taken into
account.The skin friction forces are taken into account.The skin friction drag on the
walls also contributes to the momentum change and is therefore included in D.

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 3. RESULTS

Dynamic pressures are calculated by subtracting the static pressure from the total pressure. Since
they were measured in mm water unit, they were converted to Pascal by multiplying them by 9,
80665. As a result, the dynamics pressure is found as 441.3 Pascal for the inlet where we have
220 mm water total pressure and 175 mm water static pressure. For the exit, it varies from 39.23
to 392.27 Pascal.

Using the ideal gas relation (p = ρ R T), the air density is calculated as 1.1614 kg/m^3. It is
assumed that the atmospheric pressure is 100000 in Ankara.

Incoming velocity for is calculated according to Equation 21. Inlet velocity Is 27.57 m/s and the
exit velocity varies from 8.22 to 25.99 m/s.

2∗Pdynamic
𝑉=√ --- Equation 21
Rhoair

Reynold’s numbers is calculated according to Equation2 2. It is 22484.

𝜌∗𝑉∗𝑐
𝑅𝑒 = 𝜇
--- Equation 22

𝑢
Next, η vs. 𝑈 is plotted and shown in Figure 1 below:

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 𝑢
Figure 1: η vs.
𝑈

Dynamic pressures at the inlet and exit, and velocity ratios are calculated in
MATLAB. The results are tabulated in Table 1.
y (mm) η=y/h P_dynamic_inlet (Pa) P_dynamic_exit (Pa) u/U u^2/U^2 1-u^2/U^2
0 0 441 392,266 0,942809 0,88888889 0,111111111
2 0,05 441 372,6527 0,9189366 0,84444444 0,155555556
4 0,1 441 304,00615 0,8299933 0,68888889 0,311111111
6 0,15 441 245,16625 0,745356 0,55555556 0,444444444
8 0,2 441 196,133 0,6666667 0,44444444 0,555555556
10 0,25 441 156,9064 0,5962848 0,35555556 0,644444444
12 0,3 441 117,6798 0,5163978 0,26666667 0,733333333
14 0,35 441 98,0665 0,4714045 0,22222222 0,777777778
16 0,4 441 78,4532 0,421637 0,17777778 0,822222222
18 0,45 441 58,8399 0,3651484 0,13333333 0,866666667
20 0,5 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
22 0,55 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
24 0,6 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
26 0,65 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111

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28 0,7 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
30 0,75 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
32 0,8 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
34 0,85 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
36 0,9 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
38 0,95 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
40 1 441 39,2266 0,2981424 0,08888889 0,911111111
Table 1: results

Note that in both Figure 1 and Table 1, the location where eta is 1 is on the horizontal
symmetry axis. So, when eta is zero, the value of exit velocity is very close to incoming
velocity. On the other hand, right behind the cylinder, where eta is 1, the exit velocity
is reduced slightly.

Then, drag force is calculated according to Equation 23. It is -128.9771 Newton.

To compute the integral, trapezoidal rule is used. Also the result is multiplied by
two, since the flow is symmetric on horizontal axis and only the upper part is
measured.

Finally, the drag coefficient is found using Equation 24. Cd is found as -23.3813.

Note that the negative sign indicates the direction. Drag is always in the direction of
incoming velocity.

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 4. CONCLUSION

Examining the Figure 1, it is seen that incoming velocity is reduced at the exit,
especially right behind the cylinder. The difference in momentum gave us the drag
force that is applied on the cylinder by the flow. As it is expected, the velocity profile
at the exit is very close to incoming velocity where the effect of cylinder is negligible.
That is far away from the cylinder.
Although we know that there are some errors in this experiment, (like neglecting
the wall frictions, human errors etc.) the results seems reasonable and the
experiment is reliable.
It can be seen that the drag coefficient of the cylinder is a lot higher than a typical
airfoil which is also an expected result.

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 5. REFERENCES

[1] J.D. Anderson Jr., Fundamentals of Aerodynamics, McGraw-Hill, New York,

1984.

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 6. APPENDIX
Matlab code:

h_mm=40
h_m=40/1000
y_m=y_mm./1000
d_mm=12.5
d_m=d_mm/1000
T=27+273
R=287
vis_air=1.780*10^(-5)
P_atmosphere_Pa=100000
Rho=P_atmosphere_Pa/(R*T)
P_exit_mm=160
P_exit_Pa=160*9.80665
P_static_Pa=P_static_mm*9.80665
P_total_mm=220
P_total_Pa=P_total_mm*9.80665
P_static_inlet_mm=175
P_static_inlet_Pa=P_static_inlet_mm*9.80665
P_dynamic_inlet_Pa=P_total_Pa-P_static_inlet_Pa
V_incoming=sqrt((2*P_dynamic_inlet_Pa)/Rho)
Re=(V_incoming*d_m*Rho)/vis_air
n=y_mm./h_mm
P_dynamic_exit_Pa=P_total_Pa-P_static_Pa
V_exit=sqrt((2.*P_dynamic_exit_Pa)./Rho)
Ratio1=V_exit./V_incoming
Ratio2=(Ratio1).^2
Ratio3=1.-Ratio2
Integral=trapz(y_m,Ratio3)
Drag=((-2)*h_m*(P_static_inlet_Pa-P_exit_Pa)-Rho*(V_incoming^2)*Integral*2)*2
Cd=(2*Drag)/(Rho*(V_incoming^2)*d_m)
plot(Ratio1,n)

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