Aerodynamic design

consideration

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(fifth lecture)

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Lecturer: Dr Lailai Zhu
lailai_zhu@nus.edu.sg

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 Flight control surfaces (FCS)

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FCS: movable structures that allow the pilot to adjust and
control the flight’s altitude and rotation

FCS on the wings: flaps; ailerons; slats

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 Flap systems of the wing
Features of a flap system

Configuration:

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 A hinged panel or panels commonly

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mounted on the trailing edge of the wing;
 Located near the wing root as compared to

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the aileron near the wingtip;

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 Extended during taking off and landing;

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 Retracted when not used to reduce the extra

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drag

Objectives:
 Generate a higher lift to reduce the stall
Flaps on a Cessna 182 speed; reducing the take-off distance
 Generate a higher drag and pitch-down
moment; reducing the landing distance.

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 Flap systems of the wing
Features of a flap system

Objectives:

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 Generate a higher lift to reduce the stall speed; reducing the take-off distance

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 Generate a higher drag and pitch-down moment; reducing the landing distance.

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More lift is generated from the rear wing

La i l Source: www.faasafety.gov

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 Flap systems of the wing
Features of a flap system

Working mechanisms:

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 Increases the effective wing area; From Wikipedia

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Note: increasing the area results in the Camber quantifies the top-down
inevitable increase in the drag. asymmetry of an airfoil

 Increases the airfoil camber for a larger lift;

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 Flap systems of the wing
Features of a flap system

Working mechanisms:

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 Increases the airfoil camber for a

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larger lift;

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From Boldmethod

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 Two effects of flapping down:

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larger curvature and effective Increased curvature and aerodynamic lift

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angle of attack; both increase the
aerodynamic lift.

Increased effective angle of attack and lift 6

 Main types of wing flaps
Downward rotation of the
Downward rotation flap, while maintaining
around a hinge mounted the upper surface of the
at the front of the flap wing; Not common

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nowadays

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Split Flap
From Boldmethod

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Source: kitplanes.com
Plain Flap

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Split Flap

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A gap between the flap and the

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wing allows high-pressure air from
below the wing over the upper
surface of the flap. Helps reduce
boundary layer separation and
allows the airflow over the flap to
remain laminar.
A split flap sliding
rearwards level prior to
hinging downwards. It
thereby first increases the
Fowler Flap wing surface area and then
Slotted Flap the camber. Optimizes both
takeoff (partial extension for
optimal lift) and landing
Source: aviation.stackexchange.com
(full extension for optimal
lift and drag) performance

Still in widespread use

Source: on modern aircrafts 7
 Flap systems of the wing

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La i l Credit: Flight-club at Youtube

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 Power augmented lift: blown and suction flaps
Blown flaps:
 Powered aerodynamic high-lift devices
 Use blowing air to shape the airflow over the rear edge for preventing boundary layer separation

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 Mostly using jet exhaust or high-pressure air bled off a jet engine's compressor and then redirected to

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follow the profile of rear flaps
 Three types: 1) internally blown flap (IBF); 2) externally blow flap (EBF); 3) upper-surface blowing (USB)

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Internally blown flap
S. Barnhart, et al., AIAA SciTech, 2021

Externally blown flap

Source: ‘Aerodynamics for

Engineers’ by Bertin and
Cummings
Upper-surface blowing 9
 Suction flaps
 Using suction to remove the decelerated fluid particles from the boundary
layer before they separate from the surface due to adverse pressure gradient

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Source: ‘Aerodynamics for

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Suction Engineers’ by Bertin and

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Cummings

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With suction
Suction

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No suction

For Fi 156, the maximum lift

coefficient almost doubles upon
using suction flaps
Fieseler Storch (Fi 156) 10
 Aileron
 French for “little wing”, located on the outside (close to tip) trailing edge of the wing
 Arranged and used in pair to control the rolling motion of an aircraft
 The ailerons on the two wings commonly move in opposite directions (upward and

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downward)

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 Mechanism: an aileron’s upward (resp. downward) motion decreases (resp.

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increases) the lift on the hosting wing; the difference of lift results in a roll moment.

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Roll moment

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Lift drops

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Source: thepointsguy.com and
Youtube
Lift increases

Source: NASA

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 Leading-edge slats (LES)
 A type of high-lift device as the flaps;
 Aerodynamic surfaces mounted on the leading edge of the wing to change its overall shape;
 Allowing the wing to operate at a higher angle of attack leading to stronger lift;

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 To produce the same lift, the aircraft using the LES can fly at a lower speed; namely LES can

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decrease the stall speed;

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 Used for taking off or landing but is retracted in normal flight to reduce the drag.

La i l a Leading-edge slats
Source: Wikipedia

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 Leading-edge slats (LES)

Three types of LES

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 Fixed-shape LES; permanently extended; rare.

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 Automatic LES that is spring-loaded. The

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deployment is not managed by the pilot but

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depends on the airflow around the wing. It
Automatic LES
results from the balance between the spring
force and aerodynamic force.

 Powered LES that is the modern slat. The slats

are electrically or hydraulically powered,
being more reliable than the automatic LES.
Used in almost every modern airliner.
Source: Boldmethod

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 Aerodynamic drag reduction
Drag reduction of aircraft has a substantial economical meaning:

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Source: www.statista.com

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Fuel consumption
in billion gallons

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For a single flight, the fuel consumption linearly scales with the
aerodynamic drag (Assume the energy consumption is mainly due
to aerodynamic drag)

Considering an annual fuel bill of $ 200 BN, drag reduction of 1% saves $2 BN.
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 Aerodynamic drag reduction
Two promising techniques:
 Laminar flow control (LFC)
 Innovative wingtip devices
The idea of LFC:

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 Skin-friction drag is much higher in a turbulent boundary layer than in a laminar one;

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 Drag reduction can be achieved by maintaining laminar flows over a large portion of the aircraft’s surface;

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 Without special treatment, the boundary layer on the wing inevitably transitions to turbulence due to the high

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operating Reynolds number;

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 Theory/simulations indicate that removing the innermost fluid of the boundary layer based on even very small

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amounts of suction can substantially increase the stability of a laminar boundary layer. Proved by flight tests to
a certain extent.
No LFC

Krishnan, et al., 2017

With LFC

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 Laminar flow control
 A very promising and alluring concept yet not realized at an industrial scale
 Currently being limited to wind-tunnel experiments, numerical simulations and flight tests
 Three categories: Full laminar flow control (LFC); natural laminar flow (NLF); hybrid laminar

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flow control (HLFC)

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• Passive strategy without active flow suction as LFC;
NLF

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• Shaping the wing profile to own a large portion of a

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favorable pressure gradient

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HLFC
•

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Combines leading-edge suction (like LFC) and favorable
pressure gradient due to shaping (like NLF);
Reduced complexity and weight of the suction system as
compared to LFC.

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 Hybrid laminar flow control (HLFC)

Aero secrets of Boeing’s new Dreamliner

A passive HLFC system might have been adopted for the fin and tailplane of Boeing 787-9

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HLFC

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This HLFC might use passive suction other than active suction

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 Winglets: Wingtip devices
 Winglets reduce the lift-induced drag by partial recovery of the tip vortex energy
 Winglets help reduce the strength of tip vortices
Wingtip vortex

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Source: Wikipedia

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Low pressure

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High pressure

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 Winglets block the path of higher-pressure airflow towards the upper low-pressure region
 Winglets themselves produce small vortices due to the pressure difference between their
inside and outside regions

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 Different Winglets
Source: NASA For Boeing 737-700/-800/-900
NASA KC 135 Source: Mnts at Wikimedia
Commons

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Canted winglet Blended winglet Split-Scimitar Winglets

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 The winglet is almost  Smooth connection between  More efficient than its
vertically attached to the the winglet and wing to predecessor, blended winglet
wing via a sharp angle reduce the interference drag  Further reduces the bottom-to-up
at the junction flows
 Uncommon nowadays
because of the sharpness-

Source: www.flitetest.com
induced interference drag

Source: JxJ AVIATION at Youtube 19