Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com
Compressible Flow
Section 4 (continued)
L= P l P u c cos
D= Pl P u c sin
(4.25)
where c is the chord. Note that this drag is not produced by viscosity as with incompressible or
subsonic flows. It is brought about by the waves (shock and expansion) which are unique to
supersonic flows. This is an example of Supersonic Wave Drag.
It is desirable to express drag and lift as drag and lift coefficients, CL and CD . These are
obtained by non-dimensionalising the corresponding forces with the term 1/2 U 2 A ,
where A is the area over which lift or drag force acts. This can be shown to be equal to
2
1/2 P M A .
Consequently, it can be shown that
C D=C Pl C Pu sin
where Cpl and Cpu are the pressure coefficients on lower and upper surfaces.
(4.26)
Diamond Aerofoil
D= P 1P 2 c sin w
(4.27)
It is possible to generalise the aerofoil and develop a formula for drag and lift. Consider an
aerofoil with a half wedge angle of w . Let be the orientation of any side of the aerofoil.
The pressures on each of the sides can now be summed to determine lift and drag coefficients
as follows -
P cos 1/2
C L=
In terms of Cp for each side we have
C L=
cos w
P M 2 c
2
C P cos
2 cos w
(4.28)
(4.29)
P sin 1/ 2
C D=
P M2c
2
C D=
cos w
C P sin
2 cos w
(4.30)
(4.31)
P
M 2
P
M 21
(4.32)
As per our assumption, pressure, P is not far from P and the local Mach Number on the
aerofoil is not far from M making the above equation, reduce to
2
M
P
P M 2 1
(4.33)
P
M 2 1
(4.34)
This gives,
C P=
PP
/2 P M 2
M 2
2
M 2 M 2 1
2
M 2 1
(4.35)
(4.36)
(4.37)
Thus we have a simple expression for calculating Cp on any surface in the flow, say an aerofoil.
The interesting feature is that Cp depends upon the local flow inclination alone. What
feature caused that flow turning is of no consequence. We can now re-look at the examples we
considered before.
Flow about a Flat Plate Aerofoil at an Angle of Attack
Consider the Flat Plate Aerofoil previously treated in Section . The flow is inclined at an angle
on both the surfaces. Accordingly,
C Pu =
2
M 2 1
and
C Pl =
2
M 2 1
(4.38)
and
C D =C Pl C Pu sin
(4.39)
4
C L=
M 2 1
, cos 1
and
42
C D=
M 21
and
sin
, we have,
(4.40)
Diamond Aerofoil
For the aerofoil we have for the flow behind the shock,
C P1=C P3=
2 w
(4.41)
C P2=C P4=
2 w
(4.42)
While using Eqn. 4.37 a positive sign is used for compression and a negative one for expansion.
The drag coefficient is given by,
C D=
which can be written as
4 2w
(4.43)
4
t
C D=
2
M 1 c
(4.44)
An Arbitrary Aerofoil
Consider a general aerofoil placed in a supersonic flow as in Fig. 4.21. The aerofoil can be
thought of having a thickness, h(x) , an angle of attack, and a camber c . One can
show that for this aerofoil,
C L=
4
M 2 1
2
4
dh
C D=
22c
2
M 1 dt
(4.45)
C P=
which is also written as
1 M 4 4 M 2 4 2
2
2 M 2 12
M 2 1
C P=C 1 C 2
(4.46)
(4.47)
even while using this equation, a positive sign for compression and a negative one for
expansion is used.
Note that the coefficients C1 and C2 are functions of Mach Number and
also listed in Tables in appendix.
Thus we have three methods to calculate pressure in a turning supersonic flow. Of these
Shock-Expansion technique is the most accurate. The remaining are for small flow turnings
only. The Busemann's method may provide better answers for small flow turnings.
Interaction between shocks and expansion waves
In the case of diamond aerofoil considered above, interactions can take place between shocks
and expansion. In general, these have insignificant effect on the flow. Still for an accurate
analysis, the interactions should be considered. But this is beyond the scope of an introductory
textbook as the present one. The effect of interaction is in general to attenuate the shock. The
flow configuration is given in Fig. 4.22.
A clever device built based on the idea of wave cancellation is Busemann Biplane (Fig. 4.24).
The geometry and incoming Mach Number are so arranged that a perfectly symmetrical
system of shocks is produced and at the exit there are no waves whatever. This gives a zero
wave drag. If the Busemann plane is run under off-design conditions as in Fig. 4.25, the exit
flow is not wave-free. There is a resulting wave drag.