AIRFOILS Lift and Drag Forces acting on a

Wing Section
= shape of the wings
Sectional Lift, L
Uses of airfoils

Wings Sectional Drag, D

V
Propellers and turbofans
Helicopter rotors
Compressor and turbines Sectional Lift and Drag
Hydrofoils Coefficients
Wind turbines Cl
sectional lift coefficient ,
Evolution of airfoils L
Cl
1
V2 c
2

Early designs believe sharp leading

edges will have low drag. In practice,
they stalled quickly, and generated c is the airfoil chord, i.e. distance
considerable drag. between the leading edge and trailing
edge, measured along the chordline.
Airfoil structure sectional drag force coefficient
Cd ,
D
Cd
1
V2 c
2

Equal amounts of thickness

is added to camber in a Note that...
An Airfoil is Defined as a for ENTIRE WING, we use L, D,
superposition of
Chord Line
Camber line drawn with respect to
the chord line.
Thickness Distribution which is
added to the camber line, normal
CL and CD to denote the forces
to the camber line.
Symmetric airfoils have no camber. and coefficients.
For a SECTION OF THE WING,
we call the forces acting on that
Angle of Attack
section (per unit span) L and D
, and the coefficients Cl and Cd.

V
Pressure Forces acting on the
Airfoil
Bernoullis equation says where
pressure is high, velocity will be low
and vice versa.

Pressure Coefficient Cp
p p
Cp
1
V2
2

NACA Four-Digit Series

NACA XXXX or NACA MPXX

1. First digit specifies the maximum

camber (m) in percentage of the
chord (airfoil length),
2. the second indicates the position of
the maximum camber (p) in tenths
of chord, and the last two
3. Numbers provide the maximum
thickness (t) of the airfoil in
percentage of chord.

EXAMPLE OF NACA CALCULATION

EXAMPLES OF CD, CP, AND CL

CALCULATION
AERODYNAMICS AND FLIGHT
MECHANICS
(AIRFOILSS REVISION NOTE)

1) 2130082 Syahidatunnur binti

Semaon
2) 2130098 Heera Devi a/p Kumaravel
3) 2130083 Mohamad Faiz Bin Hazmi
4) 2130085 Muhamd Shakir Zulhazmi
Bin Ismail
5) 2130101 Eqbal Abdyllah Bin Ednan
6)2130084 Sangeethiran a/l Ganesan