Plasma Flow Control
Introduction Plasma flow control, based on the plasma aerodynamic actuation, is a novel active flow control technique to improve aircrafts’ aerodynamic characteristics and propulsion efficiency. Plasma flow control has drawn…
Visualization of Complex Flow Structures by Matched Refractive-Index PIV Method
Introduction With the development of computers and their surrounding equipments, the simulation of complicated flow structures around aircrafts will further become easier and cheaper by applying computational fluid dynamics. However,…
Aerodynamic measurements
Limitations of magnetic balances The disadvantages of magnetic balances have so far limited the spread of their use to industrial wind tunnels: the first is the high investment and management…
Aerodynamic Drag Components
Drag is the force experienced by an object representing the resistance to its movement through a fluid. Sometimes called wind resistance or fluid resistance, it acts in the opposite direction to the relative…
Angle of Attack
The angle of attack of a turbine blade is the angle between the direction of the apparent or relative wind and the chord line of the blade. For an aircraft…
Wind Turbine Blades
Wind Turbines extract energy from the force of the wind on an aerofoil, in this case a turbine blade. The relative motion between the air flow and the turbine blade, is…
Aircraft Wings
Aircraft are kept in the air by the forward thrust of the wings or aerofoils, through the air. The thrust driving the wing forward is provided by an external source, in…
Newton’s Theory of Flight
Isaac Newton did not propose a theory of flight but he did provide Newton's Laws of Motion the physical laws which can be used to explain aerodynamic lift. Newton's Second Law states that:…
Dynamic Pressure
An important property of any gas is its pressure. Because understanding what pressure is and how it works is so fundamental to the understanding of rocketry, we are including several slides on pressure in…
Kutta Joukowski Theorem
Background and Historical Note: When asked how lift is generated by the wings, we usually hear arguments about velocity being higher on the upper surface of the wing relative to…
