CRITICAL LOADING PERFORMANCE

AND FINAL V-n DIAGRAM

1
CRITICAL LOADING PERFORANCE:
The greatest air loads on an aircraft usually comes from the
generation of lift during high-g maneuvers. Even the fuselage is almost always
structurally sized by the lift of the wings rather than by the pressures produced
directly on the fuselage. Aircraft load factor (n) expresses the maneuvering of
an aircraft as a standard acceleration due to gravity.
At lower speeds the highest load factor of an aircraft may
experience is limited by the maximum lift available. At higher speeds the
maximum load factor is limited to some arbitrary value based upon the expected
use of the aircraft. The maximum lift load factor equals 1.0 at levels flight stall
speed. This is the slowest speed at which the maximum load can be reached
without stalling.
The aircraft maximum speed, or dive speed at right of the V-
n diagram represents the maximum dynamic pressure and maximum load factor
is clearly important for structural sizing. At this condition, the aircraft is at
fairly low angle of attack because of the high dynamic pressure, so the load is
approximately vertical in the body axis. The most common maneuvers that we
focused are,
 Level turn
 Pull up
 Pull down
 Climb
Level turn:
The value of minimum radius of turn is given by the formula,

𝑊
4𝑘( 𝑆 )
𝑅𝑚𝑖𝑛 =
𝑇 𝑇
𝑔𝜌(𝑊)√1−4𝑘𝐶𝐷0 (𝑊)2

4𝑘𝐶𝐷0
𝑛𝑅𝑚𝑖𝑛 =√2 −
(𝑇⁄𝑊)2

2
Pull up maneuver :
2
𝑉∞
𝑅=
𝑔(𝑛−1)
(55.88)2
𝑅=
9.81(𝑛 − 1)

n = 1.09

Pull down maneuver :

2
𝑉∞
𝑅=
𝑔(𝑛+1)
(55.88)2
𝑅=
9.81(𝑛+1)

n = -0.9090

Climb:
𝑇 𝑇 2 4𝐶
𝐷0 )}0.5
[(𝑊)−𝐺]+{[(𝑊)−𝐺] −(𝜋𝑒𝐴𝑅
𝑛=
2𝐶𝐷0 ⁄𝐶𝐿

n = 3.10

Substituting the known values,

Maneuver Load factor

Level turn
1.41
Pull-up
1.09

Pull down
-0.90

Climb
3.10

3
Final V-n diagram:

Final V-n Diagram

7
6
5
4
3
Load factor

2
1
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
-1
-2
-3
-4
Velocity(m/s)