AERODYNAMICS PROJECT

REPORT

May 05, 2020

Subrahmanya V Bhide
(SC18B030)
AE221 - Aerodynamics
Department of Aerospace Engineering

Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

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The software Xfoil is used to find the aerodynamic properties pertaining to the problems
in the project. XFOIL is an interactive program for the design and analysis of subsonic
isolated airfoils. Given the coordinates specifying the shape of a 2D airfoil, Reynolds and
Mach numbers, XFOIL can calculate the pressure distribution on the airfoil and hence lift
and drag characteristics. The program also allows inverse design - it will vary an airfoil
shape to achieve the desired parameters. XFoil uses the panel method to solve for the
aerodynamic properties

Paneling parameters used for analysis were:

Number of panel nodes 200
Panel bunching parameter 1.000
TE/LE panel density ratio 0.150
Refined-area/LE panel density ratio 0.200
Top side refined area x/c limits 1.000 1.000
Bottom side refined area x/c limits 1.000 1.000
The number of iterations performed were 250.
It is desirable that we use smaller and more number of panels near the LE to be more
accurate as here there is rapid change in the airfoil curvture here. In other regions where
there is no rapid changes in the curvature we can use longer and lesser number of panels.
The analysis was performed by varying the paneling parameters and it was seen that if we
increase the number of panels, we get more accurate results and closer to the theoretical
results. When uniform paneling was used, the results obtained may not be accurate when
there is flow separation. This was evident as the results between uniform and non uniform
paneling deviated near αstall .

The NACA four-digit wing sections define the profile by:

• First digit describing maximum camber as percentage of the chord.

• Second digit describing the distance of maximum camber from the airfoil leading edge
in tenths of the chord.

• Last two digits describing maximum thickness of the airfoil as percent of the chord.
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For example, the NACA 6412 airfoil has a maximum camber of 6% located 40% (0.4 chords)
from the leading edge with a maximum thickness of 12% of the chord.

PROBLEM 1

The three airfoils considered are NACA 1412, NACA 2412 and NACA 6412. Using Xfoil
the parameters such as cl , cd and cm for angle of attacks varying from −5◦ to 24◦ were
obtained.
The angle of attack for zero lift (αL=0 ) is obtained from the curve of cl vs α and their values
are tablated in table I.
As we can see here the αL=0 value increases in magnitude as the camber increases.

TABLE I. Variation of αL=0 with camber

Max Camber αL=0
(% of chord ) (in degrees)
1 -1.0844
2 -2.0171
6 -6.2541

Figure 1 shows the variation of cm,c/4 with alpha for the three different airfoils. Here
in the figure green represents NACA 6412, blue represents NACA 2412 and red represents
NACA 1412. In the plots it is observed that the values of cm,c/4 remains a constant upto an
angle of −5◦ and then the values increase to a maximum and then start to decrease as the
angle of attack is increased. Also the value of cm,c/4 is negative (implying nose down mo-
ment). As it it seen in the plot the absolute value of cm,c/4 increases with increase in camber.

The values of α and cd at cl = 0.5 are tabulated in Tab. II.

Based on this information for low drag it is preferable to use NACA 2412 airfoil as it has

TABLE II. Properties of airfoils at cl of 0.5

Airfoil α cd
NACA 1412 3.5 0.00557
NACA 2412 2.3 0.005085
NACA 6412 -1.9 0.00654

the least cd .
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FIG. 1. variation of cm,c/4 with alpha

Fig. 2 shows the cl -α curves for the three airfoils where green represents NACA 6412,
blue represents NACA 2412 and red represents NACA 1412.
In the figure we can observe that the curve shifts upwards as the camber increases. Hence

FIG. 2. cl α curves for the three airfoils

the αL=0 also increases in magnitude with increase in camber. It is visible from the graph
that the stall angle decreases with increase in camber and in the curve of NACA 6412 there
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is a visible decrease in the slope of the cl α curve at an angle of attack of about 7-8 degrees.
It can be observed that for a particular angle of attack the cl and hence lift is higher for the
airfoil with more camber. This can be explained as follows, one of the theory for prodution
of lift states that lift is proportional to the amount by which the wing or the airfoil deviates
the incoming flow. This is known as the Coanda Effect [1]. Hence for a given angle of attack
more the camber more is the deviation of the incoming flow and hence greater the value
of cl . Hence this justifies the upward shift of the curve and due to the shift the αL=0 also
increases in magnitude as the camber increases as shown in Tab. I.

PROBLEM 2

The airfoil chosen in this problem is NACA 4412. The cl -α curves at different Reynolds
numbers are shown in the Fig. 3 where green represents Re = 3000000, blue represents Re
= 30000 and red represents Re = 3000.

FIG. 3. cl vsα curves for NACA 4412 at different Renynolds numbers

Observing the plot of cl vs α for different Reynolds numbers, we can see that for Re=30000
we see two linear regions and for Re = 3000 and Re = 3000000 we have only one linear region.
For Reynolds number of 3000 we can see that the cl is linear with alpha for almost the entire
range of alpha from −5◦ to 24◦ degrees. Whereas for Reynolds number of 3 million stall
occurs at an angle of around 16◦ . Also we observe that αL=0 is same for Reynolds number
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of 3000 as well as 30000 but is lesser at Re = 3000000. Also we can observe that the slope
of the curve for Reynolds number of 3000000 is more than that for the Re = 30000 and Re
= 3000.
At low angles of attack Re of 3000 and 30000 provide almost equal cl whereas at higher
angles Re of 30000 gives higher cl . In the whole range we get highest cl for a Reynolds
number of 3000000.
In the curve for Re = 30000 we can see that there are two linear ranges as mentioned above
this can be explained by the fact that for angles from 0 to 7 degrees there is a seperation
bubble that travels from the LE to TE after which it seperates leading to a increase in the
lift.
Fig. 4, 5 and 6 show the plots of Cd vs α, Cm,c/4 vs α, Cd vs α and Cl vs Cd respectively.

FIG. 4. Cd vs α curves for NACA 4412 at different Renynolds numbers

In the plot of cd vs α we observe that drag is least throughout for Renolyds number of
3000000. At low angles of attack we observe that lower the Reynolds number higher is the
drag coefficient. From the blasius solution we have the expression 1

0.664
Cf = √ (1)
Rex

The result is for a flat plate which shows that the friction coefficient is inversely proportional
to theRreynolds number. Since we approximate the airfoil with panels this approxiamtion
even though crude can be considered valid. Also for an airfoil which is a streamlined body,
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skin friction drag dominates over the pressure drag which is why only the skin friction
coefficient is considered.
The inverse correlations is observed to be valid only for low angles of attack, and at higher
angles of attack Cd for both reynolds number of 3000 and 30000 are found to be almost
equal. Also there is a alpha for which the Cd attains a minimum.

FIG. 5. Cm,c/4 vs α curves for NACA 4412 at different Renynolds numbers

In the plot of Cm,c/4 vs α we can observe that for negative and low positive angles of
attack upto 10◦ Cm is least for Re = 3000000 and as the angle of attack increases the value
of Cm also increases. For Reynolds numbers of 3000 and 30000 we observe that before −3◦
value of Cm is more for Re = 30000 whereas after that Cm is higher for Re = 3000. The
values of cm,c/4 is negative (implying nose down moment) throughout the range of alpha. In
the plot of Cl vs Cd we observe that for a given Cl , Cd increases with decrease in reynolds
number. We observe that Cd remains almost constant for a large range of Cl in the plot
for Re = 3000000 whereas this is not observed in the lower reynolds numbers. We also can
observe that there is a particular Cl for which Cd is the least.

PROBLEM 3

The pressure distribution was obtained using average thickness of NACA 1412, NACA
2412, NACA 6412 and GOE 704 airfoils.
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FIG. 6. Cl vs Cd curves for NACA 4412 at different Renynolds numbers

The GOE 704 is the Gottingen 704 airfoil which has Max thickness 12.9% at 29.9% chord
and Max camber 2.1% at 39.9% chord.

The obtained pressure distribution at angle of attacks of 0◦ , 2◦ , 4◦ , 6◦ , 8◦ , 10◦ , −2◦ and −4◦
are shown in Figs. 7 ,8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 respectively.
In all the plots we observe that the maximum value of Cp is +1. The Cp on the upper
surface is lesser than that on the lower surface which is the reason why we get an upward
force(Lift). For positive angles of attack Cp is negative on the upper surface and it becomes
less negative as we decrease the angle of attack.
The difference in the absolute values of Cp between upper surface and the lower surface
can be caled as the pressure gradient for the airfoil. Postive pressure gradient provides
force in the downward direction and negative pressure gradient provides force in the upward
direction.
The pressure gradient is negative for angles of attack from 2◦ to 10◦ . Whereas for zero and
negative angles of attack the pressure gradient is positive on some regions and negative on
some other regions of the airfoil. The region in which postive gradient is present increases
as the angle becomes more negative.
This is in accordance to the Coanda effect as at negative angles of attack the lower surface
deviates the incoming flow more effectively than the upper surface.
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Also the negative pressure gradient decreases in magnitude as the angle becomes more
negative.

FIG. 7. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of 0◦

FIG. 8. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of 2◦

The airfoil obtained by using Xfoil’s inverse analysis is shown in Fig. 15.

[1] https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-camber-profile-wing-generate-lift [Accessed on

3 May 2020 02:48pm]
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FIG. 9. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of 4◦

FIG. 10. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of 6◦
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FIG. 11. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of 8◦

FIG. 12. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of 10◦
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FIG. 13. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of −2◦

FIG. 14. Pressure distibution obtained for the average airfoil at angle of attack of −4◦
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FIG. 15. Airfoil obtained by using Xfoil’s inverse analysis