Research activity on an airfoil designed for a large airplane capable of very long endurance times at a low Mach number of 0.22 is examined. Airplane mission objectives and design optimization resulted in requirements for a very high design lift coefficient and a large amount of laminar flow at high Reynolds number to increase the lift/drag ratio and reduce the loiter lift coefficient. Natural laminar flow was selected instead of distributed mechanical suction for the measurement technique. A design lift coefficient of 1.5 was identified as the highest which could be achieved with a large extent of laminar flow. A single element airfoil was designed using an inverse boundary layer solution and inverse airfoil design computer codes to create an airfoil section that would achieve performance goals. The design process and results, including airfoil shape, pressure distributions, and aerodynamic characteristics are presented. A two dimensional wind tunnel model was constructed and tested in a NASA Low Turbulence Pressure Tunnel which enabled testing at full scale design Reynolds number. A comparison is made between theoretical and measured results to establish accuracy and quality of the airfoil design technique.
Design and Test of a Natural Laminar Flow/Large Reynolds Number Airfoil with a High Design Cruise Lift Coefficient
1987
25 pages
Report
No indication
English
Aerodynamics , Aircraft , Fluid Mechanics , Aerodynamic coefficients , Airfoil profiles , High Reynolds number , Laminar flow airfoils , Lift drag ratio , Wind tunnel tests , Aircraft design , Boundary layer transition , Computer aided design , Laminar flow , Pressure distribution , Turbulent boundary layer , Two dimensional models
High-Lift Low Reynolds Number Airfoil Design
Online Contents | 1997
|High-Lift Low Reynolds Number Airfoil Design
AIAA | 1997
|