The following formulas are commonly used by engineers to predict the lift and drag of an airfoil:
Question:
The following formulas are commonly used by engineers to predict the lift and drag of an airfoil:
where L and D are the lift and drag forces, V is the airspeed, S is the wing span, ρ is the air density, and CL and CD are the lift and drag coefficients.
Both CL and CD depend on α, the angle of attack, the angle between the relative air velocity and the airfoil’s chord line.
Wind tunnel experiments for a particular airfoil have resulted in the following formulas.
where α is in degrees.
Plot the lift and drag of this airfoil versus V for 0 ≤ V ≤ 150 mi/hr (you must convert V to ft /sec; there is 5280 ft/mi). Use the values ρ = 0.002378 slug/ft3 (air density at sea level), α = 10°, and S = 36 ft. The resulting values of L and D will be in pounds.
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