Exercises Lecture 5

Airfoils and compressibility

Ir. Nando Timmer
Salomon Voorhoeve
Delft University of Technology

Philip – CC- BY - NC 2.0

 AE1110x - Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering

Exercise 1
Which of the following statements about airfoils and wings is/are true?
A) An airfoil only feels two-dimensional ow, while a wing feels three-dimensional ow
B) An airfoil is the cross-section of an innitely long wing
C) We use lowercase letters in the coecients to refer to airfoils
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Exercise 2
Please drag the denitions to their correct place in the schematic. Choose between:
Angle of attack - Chord line - V - L - D - M

Figure 1: A schematic of an airfoil

Exercise 3
Consider the following statements:
1) When the airfoil is at C conditions, separation takes place around 85-90% of the chord.
l ;max

2) The rapid increase in drag after a certain angle of attack is due to the fact that transition moves
forward.
Select the answer that matches:
A) Only statement 1 is true.
B) Only statement 2 is true.
C) Both statement 1 and statement 2 are true.
D) Neither statement 1 nor statement 2 is true.

Exercise 4
Which of the following statements on laminar and turbulent airfoils is incorrect?
A) Turbulent airfoils have the transition location closer to the leading edge than laminar airfoils
B) The NACA 6-series airfoils are laminar airfoils
C) Laminar ow can be achieved by irregularities in the surface, like zig/zag strips.
D) The dierence in drag between a laminar and a turbulent airfoil can be as large as 10%.

Exercises Lecture 5 - Airfoils and compressibility correction 1

 AE1110x - Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering

Exercise 5
Consider the following statements: R1
1) The expression for the lift coecient, 0 C C d , is only valid for angles of attack

x


pl pu c

below 5 degrees.
2) The Prandtl-Glauert correction is only valid for M < 0.8

Select the answer that matches:

A) Only statement 1 is true.
B) Only statement 2 is true.
C) Both statement 1 and statement 2 are true.
D) Neither statement 1 nor statement 2 is true.

Exercise 6
Consider an aircraft ying under sea-level conditions at 230 m/s. Wind tunnel tests have shown
that the lift coecient for this angle of attack at M=0 is 0.7.
What is the lift coecient of the aircraft when it is ying at 230 m/s?

Exercise 7
An airfoil is tested in a windtunnel at M=0.3, resulting in a lift coecient of 0.5. We then use
that airfoil in an aircraft with a very high aspect ratio (so we can assume a 2D wing), ying at
M=0.6.
What is the lift coecient for the aircraft?

2 Exercises Lecture 5 - Airfoils and compressibility correction