Airfoil Theory

Introductory Remarks
AE 2020 Class Notes
Lakshmi N. Sankar
lsankar@ae.gatech.edu
 Overview
Nomenclature
Decomposition of airfoils into thickness effects,
angle of attack, and flat plate effects
Thin airfoil, small angle of attack, mild camber
assumptions
Linearization of boundary conditions
Linearization of surface pressure coefficient
Vortex sheet based modeling of cambered
surface at an angle of attack
 NACA 4 Digit Series Airfoils
http://www.desktopaero.com/appliedaero/appliedaero.html
Example of a NACA 4-Digit Series:

Consider the airfoil NACA 4412.

The first digit gives maximum camber in % of chord

The second digit gives in tenth of a chord where the maximum camber occurs

The last two digits give the maximum thickness in %chord.

4 4 12
max camber position max thickness
in % chord of max camber in % of chord
in 1/10 of c
 NACA 5 Digit Series
After the 4-digit sections came the 5-digit sections such as the famous NACA 23012.

These sections had the same thickness distribution, but used a camber line with more
curvature near the nose.

A cubic was faired into a straight line for the 5-digit sections.

NACA 5-Digit Series:

2 30 12
approx max position max thickness
camber of max camber in % of chord
divided by 1/50 of c
 NACA 6 Digit Series
The 6-series of NACA airfoils departed from
this simply-defined family.
These sections were generated from a more or
less prescribed pressure distribution and were
meant to achieve some laminar flow.
NACA 6-Digit Series:
6 3, 2 - 2 12
Six- location half width ideal Cl max thickness
Series of min Cp of low drag in tenths in % of chord
in 1/10 chord bucket in 1/10
of Cl
 Life Beyond Six Digit Series
After the six-series sections, airfoil design became
much more specialized for the particular
application.
Airfoils with good transonic performance, good
maximum lift capability, very thick sections, very
low drag sections are now designed for each use.
Often a wing design begins with the definition of
several airfoil sections
The entire geometry is modified based on its 3-
dimensional characteristics.
Recall..
An airfoil is defined by first drawing a mean
camber line.
The straight line that joins the leading and
trailing ends of the mean camber line is called
the chord line.
The length of the chord line is called chord,
and given the symbol c.
To the mean camber line, a thickness
distribution is added in a direction normal to
the camber line to produce the final airfoil
shape.
Equal amounts of thickness are added above
the camber line, and below the camber line.
An airfoil with no camber (i.e. a flat straight
line for camber) is a symmetric airfoil.

The angle that a freestream makes with the

chord line is called the angle of attack.
Forces along the x- and y- axes: The forces and moments acting on an airfoil may be computed as follows.
y

Let Y be the pressure force per unit span (i.e. per unit distance normal to the plane of the paper) along the y- axis.
This force may be computed as:
Y pdx pdx p
Lower Upper
upper plower dx
Surface Surface
If we subtract off a constant value p from the upper and lower side pressure values, then the force will not change.
Thus,
Y pupper p plower p dx
We can non-dimensionalize the above dimensional form by dividing the pressure by the dynamic pressure, and the
distances by the chord c. Then,

CY
Y

p upper
p plower p x
d C p ,upper C p ,lower d
x
1 1 c c
V2 c V2
2 2

dY dY
X pupper dx plower dx
dx upper dx lower
X dY dY x
CX C p ,upper C p ,lower d
1
V2 c dx upper dx lower c
2
 Lift and Drag
Lift and drag are related to the X- and Y- forces as follows:
y, Y
L D

x,X

Freestream
Direction
L Y cos X sin
D X cos Y sin
C l CY cos C X sin
C d C X cos CY sin
The quantities Cl and Cd are called the lift, and drag coefficients, respectively. By convention, the lower case
subscripts are used in 2-D flows, while upper case subscripts are used to denote lift and drag coefficients of three-
dimensional configurations such as wings.
 Pitching Moment
We can also define the pitching moment about any point on the chord
line.

Nose up moment is considered positive.

About a general point on the x- axis whose co-ordinates are given by (a,0),
the pitching moment per unit span is given in dimensional form by:
x-a

M pupper plower ( x a)dx P, upper

a
x
The non-dimensional form is given by:
P, lower
Cm C p ,upper C p ,lower d
x a x
c c c
 Center of Pressure
The center of pressure is defined as the point
about which the pitching moment is zero.

As the flow conditions change (example,

angle of attack a changes), the center of
pressure will change.
 Aerodynamic Center
The aerodynamic pressure is defined as the point where the pitching
moment (or the pitching moment coefficient) is independent of
alpha.

That is, if we computed the pitching moment about the aerodynamic

center,

M C m
0

 Thin Airfoil Theory will yield..
C l 2 0
C l
2

C d 0 (d' Alembert' s Paradox)
C m
0 about the quarter - chord point.

The quantity 0 is called the angle of zero lift, since lift is zero at =0.

In real flows, Cl, Cd and Cm will differ from our theory (hopefully, only slightly) due to viscous effects.

As may be expected, symmetric airfoils will have zero lift at zero angle of attack.
Thus, 0 is zero for symmetric airfoils.

For Cambered airfoils 0 can have positive or negative, depending on whether they have a
positive camber (camber line is convex, i.e. curved up) or negative camber
(camber line is concave, i.e. curved down).