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Drag
The black arrow above the picture shows the direction of the drag force, when the cross section of the airplane wing or rotor blade is moving towards the right.
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the wing area. **) The drag coefficients are valid for Reynolds numbers above 104, a subject which is further discussed at the bottom of this page.
High Lift to Drag Ratio Needed for airfoils for Rotor Blades
The rotors on modern wind turbines have very high tip speeds for the rotor blades, usually around 75 m/s (270 km/h, 164 mph). In order to obtain high efficiency, it is therefore essential to use airfoil shaped rotor blades with a very high lift to drag ratio, i.e. rotor blades which provide a lot of lift with as little drag as possible. This is particularly necessary in the section of the blade near the tip, where the speed relative to the air is much higher than close to the centre of the rotor. For wind turbines with a low tip speed it is not necessary to use top quality airfoils. The "Western" type windmill rotors can easily be manufactured from flat metal plate.
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Re = v L / ( / ) Re = The Reynolds number, which is dimensionless, i.e. it is a ratio of two quantities with the same unit. v = The relative velocity of the fluid in m/s. L = The characteristic length, in this case the largest cross section of the frontal area in m. = The viscosity of the fluid in Ns/m2. The viscosity of air, also called the dynamic viscosity of air is 1.8 x 10- 5 at 15 C and atmospheric pressure at sea level. The value for the viscosity of air at other temperatures may be found in the Reference Manual. = The density of the fluid in kg/m3. The value in the denominator of the fraction ( / ) is called the kinematic viscosity of air. When the kinematic viscosity is high, the laminar flows dominate. Thus, if the Reynolds number is very small, below 1, one can ignore pressure drag and concentrate on friction drag. If the number is large, above 100, one can ignore the friction drag and look at pressure drag only. Close to the surface of the object friction drag and viscosity are always important. If you are interested in more detail on this subject, you should consult a textbook on fluid mechanics such as the ones mentioned in the bibliography.
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