PROPELLER ROTATING IN A WATER STREAM The photograph shows cavitation bubbles of water vapour leaving the blades and thus making visible the vortices in the slipstream THEORETICAL AERODYNAMICS BY L. M. MILNE-THOMSON, C.B.E, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE PROFESSOR OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS IN BROWN UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR IN THE MATHEMATICS RESEARCH CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY oF WISCONSIN VISITING PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITIES OF ROME, QUEENSLAND, CALGARY, OTAGO FOURTH EDITION Revised and enlarged DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. NEW YORKThe time will come when thou shalt lift thine eyes To watch a long drawn battle in the skice While aged peasante too amazed for words Stare at the flying fleets of wondrous birds ‘Tuomas Gray Luna Habitabilis, 1737 Copyright © 1958 by L. M. Milne-Thomson. All rights reserved under Pan American and Inter- national Copyright Conventions. Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario. Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 10 Orange Street, London WC 2. ‘This Dover edition, first published in 1973, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the fourth edition (1966) of the work originally pub- lished by Macmillan and Company Limited in 1958. International Standard Book Number: 0-486-61980-X Library of Congress Catalog Gard Number: 73-85109 Manufactured in the United States of America Dover Publications, Inc. 180 Varick Street New York, N. Y. 10014 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION Tue airflow round an aircraft is a phenomenon of high complexity. To study it, in the present state of our knowledge, demands simplifying assump- tions. These must be largely based on experimental observation of what actually happens; that is one aspect of the practical side of aerodynamics. To make mathematical deductions and predictions belong to the theoretical side and it is the theoretical* side with which this book is concerned. The aim is therefore.to lay bare the assumptions, to bring them to explicit statement so that the reader may be consciously aware of what is assumed, and then to examine what can be deduced from the assumptions as a first approximation, . The treatment is based on my lectures to junior members of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors at the Royal Naval College during the past ten years. . The mathematical equipment of the reader is presumed not to extend beyond the elements of the differential and integral calculus. What further is needed is mostly developed in the course of the exposition, which is thus reasonably self-contained. It is therefore hoped that the book will provide a solid introduction to the theory which is the indispensable basis of practical applications. Since the use of vectors, or in two-dimensions the complex variable, intro- duces such notable simplifications of physical outlook and mathematical technique, I have had no hesitation in using vector methods. On the other hand the subject has been presented in such fashion that the reader who prefers cartesian notations should encounter little difficulty in adapting the vector arguments to a cartesian presentation. Chapter XXI on vectors has been added for the benefit of those with little or no previous acquaintance with vector methods. This chapter may be read first, or just before Chapter IX, or merely used as a compendium for reference. Apart from Chapters I and II which are of a preliminary general character, and Chapter XXI on vectors, the work falls into four fairly well-defined parts, Chapters III to VIII contain the theory of two-dimensional, Chapters IX to XIV that of three-dimensional aerofoils, including propellers and wind tunnel corrections. Chapters XV, XVI, XVII deal with the effect of the compres- sibility of air in subsonic and supersonic flow. Chapters XVIII to XX are concerned with the aircraft as a whole. The chapters are divided into sections numbered in the decimal notation. The equations are numbered in each section independently. Thus 7-14(3) refers to equation (3) in section 7-14 which, as the integer before the decimal point indicates, occurs in Chapter VII. Backward and forward references are *To “the uninstructed and popular world” practical and theoretical are antonyms; a palpably false proposition.