Low Speed Airfoil: Info & Resources for Students

[giber]

hello people.

i´m a aeronautical engineer student and i need to do a work about low speed airfoil.. can anyone tell me where i can get information about this subject.. thanks

 

[sid_galt]

The NASA site http://www.nasg.com/afdb/insert-category-e.phtml has a lot of info on all airfoils including low speed ones. The Eppler airfoils are good at low reynold numbers.

Check out the xfoil program for lift and drag calculation too. It is good atleast for learning. You might also search scholar.google.com for papers and thesis on low speed airfoils.
This (http://www.nd.edu/~mav/belgium.pdf ) thesis for eg. contains information on Eppler low reynolds airfoils for MAVs.

 

[ccrummer]

At low speed, the Coanda effect is very useful to maintain lift. This is how blown flaps work. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-72 . It isn't just the airfoil itself but how the flow is managed.

 

[boneh3ad]

The An-72 used the Coanda effect to keep the exhaust gas attached to the wing surface. However, the Coanda effect is far from the whole story here.

Check out the book "Theory of Wing Sections" for a good reference and any low speed aerodynamics book.

 

[ccrummer]

You are right. Aerodynamic lift is caused by several factors. The attachment of the exhaust gas is the effect of the lowered pressure. The cause of the lowered is the boundary layer interaction between the high-speed exhaust and the wing surface. This use is similar to the blown flaps used on carrier aircraft. The Coanda effect allows the An-72 to take off and land on very short runways. Antonov still makes this aircraft. I wonder why this effect has not been used more widely.