Can we increase the wing area vertically?

[The_Thinker]

hmmm... i was just wondering, if we increased the area of a wing and sacrifice drag, we should get more lift right? and if we got more lift, should we not be fly with a low velocity?

And I am not talking like gliders and increasing the wingspan, I am thinking about increasing their area vertically... is this possible??

Im not an aeronautical engineer or anything, i just thought it should be possible after going through how a wing works... so if you can help me out, it would be good...

 

[ank_gl]

what do you mean by increasing the area vertically? do u mean increasing the thickness?

 

[FredGarvin]

It's not a simple tradeoff like you are thinking. The result of lift is drag. Not only parasitic, but induced drag. Also you increase the weight.

I have no idea what you mean about increasing the area vertically.

 

[Langbein]

It's true it will produce to much drag, but there have been som thick wing designs. Junker had a model once with passengers sitting inside the thick wing. It lookes like it had a Boeing 747 style Cocpit as well. (The jumbo airliner of the thirties)

http://www.geocities.com/hjunkers/ju_g38_a1.htm

Some more modern design that has not yet been a success:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-48

 

[Danger]

Well, I guess that it depends upon what you mean by increasing it vertically. There are devices called Whitcomb winglets that look like vertical stabilizers on the tips of the wings. I have no idea of how they work from an aeronautical engineering standpoint, but I'm sure that Fred, Russ, Rainman Aero and a few others can tune you in on that. The essence, however, is that they 'trick' the wings into acting as if they're much longer than they really are. My best semi-educated guess would be that it has something to do with harnessing wingtip vortices, but I really don't know.

 

[ank_gl]

winglets produces the infinite wing span effect

 

[Langbein]

No and yes .. The "only" effect of a winglet is to reduse drag due to wing tip wotex'es. Possibly it has som other effect as well as a slightely increased lift and improved stability.


http://www.b737.org.uk/winglets.htm

 

[FredGarvin]

That is, in essence, what an infinite wing span is. It does not suffer from drag induced at the tips. Winglets do not produce that effect, but try to simulate it. We will never fly a wing that exactly reproduces an infinite wing's performance.

I have read a couple of papers in which they claimed that there was also a slight propulsive force created at the winglets due to their aerodynamics.

 

[The_Thinker]

Hmmm... what I meant was since that since the lift depended on the angle of attack and area of the wing, if we were to increase the area of the wing linearly as in not the wingspan, but the actual breadth of the wing. These probably aren't the best words, what i mean is as illustrated in the diagram below...

So... if we can increase the breadth of the wing would we be able to increase the lift, sacrificing the drag? this is what i wanted to know...

 

[LurkingEyes]

You mean making the wings Deeper instead of Longer or Taller? Sort of like the space shuttle or the XB-70?

 

[The_Thinker]

exactly... XB70?

 

[LurkingEyes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XB-70_Valkyrie

It used a delta-wing design, for ease in supersonic speeds, had sort of an accident.

Also, this isn't "Vertical" as you first asked, but I'm running with it.

And almost the opposite of what you're asking, the Delta Wing design I'm assuming you are thinking of was use a lot more for High-Speed (and supersonic) than low speed because it was a lot of weight. They suffer from flow separation at a higher angle of attack (probably didn't help in the Valkyrie crash), which normal wings are better at preventing. They also don't provide as much of a L/D Ratio as you'd think, as planes like the B-52 (long wings) outperform them.

More of the earlier jets used that design, but some (like the Eurofighter and the F/A-18 Hornet, F-16, etc.) still use some variant of it. Normal wing design won out in the long run though.

The wiki article sums most of it up, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_wing"
And http://www.aerodyn.org/Wings/delta.html"

Someone else can probably explain more in detail though.

 

[FredGarvin]

Are you referring to increasing the chord length? I'm still a bit confused, even with your diagram.

The XB-70...what a great aircraft. Absolutely awe inspiring to stand underneath it back at the engines and look forward.

 

[The_Thinker]

no actually what i meant by the whole vertical thing is that...

Why even bother with the whole combination of both the bernoulli and Newton thing and just instead use the Newton idea...

I hope this very poorly drawn diagram can represent the question I am trying to ask...

also... why even bother with the thrust what with all the drag and all? why not just provide actual thrust in an inclined direction and forget the wing thing? as provide the thrust from the bottom with an engine and incline it in the required direction?

Oh... thanks for clarifying my thoughts so far...

 

[Danger]

Now it looks as if you're talking about a 'scissor-wing' (oblique) like the AD-1. Is this what you're getting at?
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/history/pastprojects/AD1/index.html"

 

[ank_gl]

also... why even bother with the thrust what with all the drag and all? why not just provide actual thrust in an inclined direction and forget the wing thing? as provide the thrust from the bottom with an engine and incline it in the required direction?

giving thrust sounds pretty much easy. but as far as i understand a wing also gives you the required stability. consider this idiotic example, what if the thruster blows up?, we all die, haha. but add the wings into the story, you can easily glide to safety.
also wing can give much more lift at lower speeds of engines then a thruster would do. cost is also a factor, you can't put big thrusters on every aircraft

 

[russ_watters]

Gah, you're really killing me, Thinker. Look http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/fluids/airfoil.html" for airfoil terminology.

The vertical dimension is thickness.
The front-to-back dimension chord.
The side-to-side dimension is span.

It sounds to me like you want to increase the chord. Is that correct?

If it is the chord you are looking to increase, the primary drawback of that is what the guys were discussing above: with a long chord, short span (aka, low aspect ratio) wing, the wingtip vortices are proportionally larger, increasing drag and decreasing lift.

 

[russ_watters]

also... why even bother with the thrust what with all the drag and all? why not just provide actual thrust in an inclined direction and forget the wing thing? as provide the thrust from the bottom with an engine and incline it in the required direction?

You mean like with a helicopter? The main reason is efficiency: the type of thrust that is most efficient for lifting is high volume, low velocity. The type that is most efficient for high speed is high velocity, low volume. You'll note that most airplanes do not have thrust to weight ratios greater than 1.

 

[LurkingEyes]

That Thing would scare the crap out of me.

also... why even bother with the thrust what with all the drag and all? why not just provide actual thrust in an inclined direction and forget the wing thing? as provide the thrust from the bottom with an engine and incline it in the required direction?

Because that takes a Lot of fuel. With wings you let nature do Some of the work by gliding, and you glide as long as you're moving forward (albeit a powered glide). With that, you basically have a rocket, and we don't have motors efficient enough to stay on for that long of time. You also get that there are no control surfaces, so your motors have to do that as well. Plus unless you have yet another engine that is reserved for only forward thrust, with an engine at a 45 or 60 degree angle to also provide lift, you'll never get the full forward-velocity that you Could get.I also didn't see there was a second page.

 

[The_Thinker]

yeah I did mean the "chord"... and well...

You mean like with a helicopter?

hmmm... well actually I meant like the X-22..
here:

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/VSTOL_aircraft/Tech30.htm"

Regarding the bigger chord:
RIght... so its less efficient... that's okay... but one can produce good lift at low velocities right... besides, after reaching a certain height, the wing can be folded or lowered or rised or something, to reduce the drag right?

Regarding the vertical thrust:
Also... Let me get this straight... its more efficient to induce drag to a plane to make it take off and less efficient to supply the thrust on your own? Ah... could you show we the equations involved?

And... well... about the safety thing, that's why we have parachutes right?

 

[ank_gl]

Also... Let me get this straight... its more efficient to induce drag to a plane to make it take off and less efficient to supply the thrust on your own? Ah... could you show we the equations involved?

And... well... about the safety thing, that's why we have parachutes right?

both cases for take off
let the mass be m
CASE 1- wings
T thrust , D drag
acceleration = (T-D)/m
velocity = (2*a*s)^0.5
lift =(density*vel^2*Cl)/2
here lift = m*g
CASE 2- thrusters
let 'em put the max power, ie. let them be vertical at the start(VTOL)
therefore T=m*g

now calculate taking appropriate values(just basic physics equations)
others can really help actually

oh safety, that's why roads are. why fly, when you can safely walk home!

 

[russ_watters]

RIght... so its less efficient... that's okay... but one can produce good lift at low velocities right... besides, after reaching a certain height, the wing can be folded or lowered or rised or something, to reduce the drag right?

Well, you can certainly reconfigure a wing in flight to optomize efficiency (see: F-14), but the machinery adds weight to the plane. It's a tradeoff.

Regarding the vertical thrust:
Also... Let me get this straight... its more efficient to induce drag to a plane to make it take off and less efficient to supply the thrust on your own? Ah... could you show we the equations involved?

No need for equations (that could get very complicated), just look at the thrust-to-weight ratios of a few airplanes: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_400_prod.html

The 747's engines produce 63,300 lb of thrust each (x4) and the gross takeoff weight is 875,000 lb. That's a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.29. So if you wanted a vertical takeoff 747 with pivoting engines, you'd need 14 engines.

Remember also that high speed performance is more important than takeoff performance, so planes are designed with that in mind. And you'll note that propulsion from helicopters and jet engines involves fundamentally different populsion devices - you wouldn't for example, strap two jet engines to the side of a helicopter to replace the rotor.

Hmmm... actually, the equations involved aren't too bad. You can derive it from the fan law ( http://www.efisystemsgroup.com/fanlaws.htm ). The issue is that to drive a plane fast you have to make the engine exhaust move fast and making the exhaust move fast requires a higher pressure than making it move slow, which in turn requires more engine power.

edit: ehh, it isn't quite that bad. Jet engines get compression from the incoming air's velocity and actually are more efficient at high speed. The fact that they need air to be in motion to function efficiently is probably a bigger issue than the pressure-velocity-horsepower relationship.

 

[Danger]

about the safety thing, that's why we have parachutes right?

So it conks out, you pull the panic-rack and float gently to Earth. Suppose you're over New York City at the time. How many people is that vehicle going to kill when it lands without you?

 

[FredGarvin]

Jet engines get compression from the incoming air's velocity and actually are more efficient at high speed. The fact that they need air to be in motion to function efficiently is probably a bigger issue than the pressure-velocity-horsepower relationship.

While ram effect is a nice thing usually, the greater gains are simply from being at altitude. Engine specifications are derived from test data taken in a cell at close to sea level and static conditions.

 

[The_Thinker]

ah yes... but who needs high speed? I am talking about cars... SO if we had a low velocity and a big chord length one can get a vehicle to take off and have a low velocity but one can have flight...

Anyway...
About safety, well accidents happen everyday... and besides, I am thinking about a High Capacity battery powered engine... and battery engines are less likely to blow up, right... we would just need the right precautionary methods... and it should work right?

The point is, if we had a plane, then the shortest distance between any two points is always going to be a straight line unlike a car in which the shortest distance, always has the worst roads...

 

[russ_watters]

Whether the speed is low or high, a high aspect ratio wing is still more efficient than a low aspect ratio wing.

 

[Langbein]

If you mean by "efficeincy" the content that this word nomally wil have the realtionship between the lift and the drag, it is true that a thick wing allways will produce a lot of drag, so it not be "effecient" in that way.

If the word "efficiency" should mean something else, something to "how to produce as much lift as possible with a wing that has a small area", then the situation is changed.

Wing for bigger aircrafts is allways built with a leading edge slat and a trailing edge flap, to increas "the aerodynamic thicness" of the wing while flying at low speeds.

While doing the landing the increased drag is a wanted effect to reduce the forward speed of the aircraft.

It is true that if you should make as much as possible lift on a wing with as small as possible area, it should make be made aerodynamically "thick". On the other hand this would require the consume of a lot of fuel to keep it flying.

 

[Langbein]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slats

Figure 2 on the next link shows a bit of this prinsiple:

http://www.aerodyn.org/HighLift/high_lift.html

In such a design the "thick wing" can be made with some leakage from the underside to the overside to control the airtream will not stall out and get turbulent separeted on the upper wing surphase. Such a wing design will produce a lot of lift and drag.

And one more:
http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/highlift/highliftintro.html

 

[AlephZero]

The point is, if we had a plane, then the shortest distance between any two points is always going to be a straight line

No, it's a great circle, not a straight line

 

[Langbein]

.., I am thinking about a High Capacity battery powered engine... and battery engines are less likely to blow up, right... we would just need the right precautionary methods... and it should work right?

Technically it could be possible to build a low flying airplane with courved aerydynamically "thick" wings. Then the increased lift from the "thick wing design" will add up with the ground effect, producing even more lift.

On the other hand this will require a very strong truster. (Fan or propeller.)

I guess that the only intallation that will give power enough for some time will be a jet turbine engine. (Like a small fan jet or a small turbo propeller engine.)

Relatively smaller propeller turbo engines can be bought as standard aircraft parts, but they are still quite expensive.

I believe such an aircraft would have poor aerodynamic stability due to its low speed.

 

[russ_watters]

If you mean by "efficeincy" the content that this word nomally wil have the realtionship between the lift and the drag, it is true that a thick wing allways will produce a lot of drag, so it not be "effecient" in that way.

Yes, in general, the higher the aspect ratio, the higher the l/d ratio due to reducing the effect of wingtip vortices.

If the word "efficiency" should mean something else, something to "how to produce as much lift as possible with a wing that has a small area", then the situation is changed.

True, but that isn't a typical situation for airplanes. In any case, there is another word for that: wing loading. It is the weight per unit area that a wing supports (ie, lb/sq ft). Delta wings typically have lower wing loadings than higher aspect ratio wings for the same reason described above: it takes more area to produce the same amount of lift on a lower efficiency wing.

Wing for bigger aircrafts is allways built with a leading edge slat and a trailing edge flap, to increas "the aerodynamic thicness" of the wing while flying at low speeds.

No, that's not the purpose of either flaps or slats. The purpose of flaps (leading or trailing edge) is to increase camber and the purpose of slats is to provide boundary layer control to enable flight at higher angles of attack (which is what your wik link says in it's first sentence). Neither significantly affect the chord length of the wing. Ie, with them deployed, you may double (or more) the lift while only increasing the chord by 10%. Your last link with the flow visualization also shows that very little lift is generated by the slat itself.

It is true that if you should make as much as possible lift on a wing with as small as possible area, it should make be made aerodynamically "thick".

No, that is not true and it contradicts the sentence that follows. Obviously, a wing with that consumes more fuel to keep flying has a lower l/d ratio.

You've got an awful lot of misconceptions going on here. You're doing good research, but you aren't reading what you find! Also, I get the impression you have a specific application in mind - if there is something unusual about it that changes the pros/cons, we may be able to help with it if you explain your application to us.

 

[caslav.ilic]

Some bits regarding the geometry influence on efficiency. Things sometimes take strange turns when one moves from analysis to design.

First things first, usually we know how big we want the airplane to be. This practically means its total weight, which will determine the price, all other things equal. So, the weight is somehow a fixed, external element of the design.

Let's think of cruise flight (forget flaps, slats, etc.)

The first "deviation" from the analysis is that the induced drag no longer depends on wing aspect ratio, but solely on span. That is to say, given a span, the induced drag will be the same no matter what aspect ratio the wing has.

Having further fixed the span, the aspect ratio actually influences the viscous, or skin drag. The higher the aspect ratio, the lower the skin drag. Unfortunately, also the higher the wing structural weight.

Aerodynamically speaking, the wing thickness now has only detrimental effect to drag -- the thicker the wing, the higher the skin drag. However, also the lower the wing structural weight.

How can these facts be used for design?

Suppose that you have a working airplane, and you want to tweak its wing shape to increase the efficiency (reduce drag) without touching either the total weight or the span (the span limit say due to ground support facilities, as largest box-size dimension for low-speed airplane). Furthermore, suppose that the airplane is structurally optimal, that all elements weigh only as much as needed to support the expected loads plus safety limits.

Well, the first piece of bad news is: you're screwed, can't improve efficiency at all :) So let's relax a bit: miraculously, some elements of the existing configuration can become lighter (e.g. due to use of shiny new materials). Now you have some weight reserve, which you can use to improve the efficiency of the wing.

So, span is fixed, means induced drag is fixed. You therefore start increasing aspect ratio in order to decrease skin drag, which increases the wing weight too, until you either again hit the total weight limit, or the limit of airfoil stall.

The airfoil stall limit may happen for the following reason. Having fixed span, increasing aspect ratio means reducing wing area. Hence, to carry the same total weight, the wing has to be under higher angle of attack. Eventually, the airfoils will stall. So if the stall limit happens before the weight limit, then airfoils have to be exchanged for some that will admit higher section lift, if possible.

If the weight limit is hit before the stall limit, than it is a bit more interesting. Remember the wing thickness? Providing that you keep the airfoil stall characteristics, you can increase the wing thickness so to gain more structural weight, which you can then keep throwing at increasing the aspect-ratio. (Usually the effect of skin drag increase for thicker airfoils is more than offset by skin drag decrease due to higher aspect-ratio.)

Basically, for cruise efficiency, this all boils down to increasing the wing loading within given weight limits, as Russ mentioned. Unfortunately, high wing loading will have detrimental effect to some other possibly important characteristics, like climb performance, takeoff/landing distance, and maneuverability. That's why commercial transports and airliners have very complicated slat/flap systems -- their basic wings are efficient cruise wings, and just by themselves would need much longer runway lengths and too high takeoff and landing speeds.

--
Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић)

 

[Langbein]

You've got an awful lot of misconceptions going on here. You're doing good research, but you aren't reading what you find! Also, I get the impression you have a specific application in mind - if there is something unusual about it that changes the pros/cons, we may be able to help with it if you explain your application to us.

Well, I thaught I did not do any resaerch at all.

I don't know which of my "applications" you are thinking about.

Well normally they have not used to fall down to often even though I thought that small little thing on the tip of the wings that goes down (the slat) and that cute little thing at the rear, the flap were to increase the lift.

As I believed that possibly not all of us have a professional background from the airline industry, so I thought that the person behind the question might mean something else with the expression "thick wing" that I first thaught he ment.

He might be right about one basic consideration:

If you make a wing with the tip tuned down (like a slat) and the rear of the wing tuned down (like a flap) so that the wing will be formed in a courved way, like a bird wing than this wing will produce a bigger lift on a lower speed.

This little "bird wing principle" is used on allmost all jet airplanes when they are landing.

If you make a aircraft wing with the same basic geometry as a landing jetliner you will get a wing that produces a lot of lift and drag.

When slats and slats are used they will be used togeteher with the proper flight procedures for that certain aircraft.

On most aircraft models the correct use of slats and flaps together the proper flight procedures (nose up) will produse more lift, as the verticall area of the airstream the the the airfoil will work on will increase. (If you like to call that a "aerodynamicly thick wing" you can do that. If you don't like to you can call it something else, but it will be working on a thicker part of the airstream.)

Which aircraft model does not work this way ? (I was doing military fighther planes for some years ago, and I have some doubts about the F-16, did it have a leading edge slat (with no boundary control) or did it not. I believe it had both slat and flap (flapron) without any boundary control. I will try to check on that.)

By the way, I have still not made any research, yet, but I might look for some material :-)

 

[Langbein]

hmmm... i was just wondering, if we increased the area of a wing and sacrifice drag, we should get more lift right? and if we got more lift, should we not be fly with a low velocity?

I think it looks like I do remember correctely about the F-16. It has electro hydraulic actuators to turn the leading edge down and the trailing edge also down, to form it as a bird wing, for increased lift at low speed (typical at landing.) There is, as far as I remember no airleakage trought the wing and no boundary control that way. If one like to call that a aerodynamically thicker wing as it works on a thicker airstream. (When the leading edge slat goes down the aircraft nose will go up, to increase angle of attack.)

You can actually see the slat and the flap is actuated on this picture. (I hope that the link work.)

(See the wing left for the pilot.)

http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2367729320011758446TfOPer

 

[Langbein]

One more picture of a fighter aircraft the shows the "bird wing shape" due to a leading edge slat and trailing edge flap. This makes the wing work on a thicker layer of the airstream and produces more lift.

http://www.sirviper.com/index.php?page=fighters/su-27/index

(See the last picture, typically leading edge down, traling edge down, and node up so that the airstream will see a "thinker wing". If you made a simular picture of an F-16 or a Boing 747 at low speed, you will se that they do the "bird wing trix" as well.)

The_Thinker was actually right in his initial thaughts that you can increase the lift by increasing the area of the wing or the horizontal area of the airstream that the wing will meet. (If I understood him right.)

I do not believe that he was right if he think that a aircraft with such a wing design will fly for very long time using a battery and an electric motor as the power source.

I still have not made any research but I need to find some pictures to explain some stuff from "the good old days".