Wind Tunnel Activity

Aerospace Engineering
January 2012
Becky Jones

We used JAVAFOIL to input a NACA code for the Jabiru SP-T (tail dragger version of the Jabiru SP-T) and
a range of angle of attacks so that the program could give us an output of lift and drag coefficients. We
utilized Microsoft Excel to add air velocity to calculate the lift and drag for a 5X3 scale model.
We also used a wind tunnel to study the difference between various angle of attacks and velocities. We
put a 5 scale model into the wind tunnel, then used a program to show when it hit stall.
We used various types of winds to show how the shape of a wing changes the data.

DESCRIPTION - JAVAFOIL, Cessna 173 Skyhawk 1973-present day NACA 2412, 5"x3" airfoil scale model

[]
0
5
10
15
20
25

Cl
[-]
0.52
1.098
1.518
1.353
1.147
0.844

v10mph
14.66667

Cd
[-]
0.0165
0.02065
0.03748
0.14038
0.2526
0.42863

Area (ft2)
0.002369 0.1042

A density of 1.2210kg/m^3 in Javafoil was

converted to 0.002369slugs by multipying
the original density by 0.0685217659 (to
convert to slugs) then dividing by
3.2808399^3 (to convert to feet). This gave
us a converted density of 0.002369.
Velocity Converted
v10mph 14.66667

Velocity Converted into ft/sec

v20mph
v30mph
v40mph
29.33333333
44
58.66667

Cl

10

0.52

1.098

1.518

Cd

0.0165

0.02065

0.03748

15
1.353
0.14038

v20mph
v30mph
v40mph

29.33333
44
58.66667

20

25

1.147
0.2526

0.844
0.42863

30
0.565
0.67465

0
0.013801619
0.055206474
0.124214567
0.220825896

Velocity
(mph)

10
20
30
40

LIFT (lbs)
Angle of Attack
5
10
15
0.029143 0.04029 0.035911
0.116571 0.16116 0.143643
0.262284 0.362611 0.323197
0.466282 0.644642 0.574572

20
25
30
0.030443 0.022401 0.014996
0.121773 0.089604 0.059984
0.273989 0.20161 0.134964
0.487091 0.358417 0.239936

Effects of Angle of Attack and Velocity on Lift

Lift (lbs)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2

40 mph
30 mph

0
0

Velocity

20 mph

10

15

10 mph

20

25

30

Angle of Attack ( )

0
0.000875872
0.003503488
0.007882848
0.014013951

Velocity
(mph)

10
20
30
40

DRAG (lbs)
Angle of Attack
5
10
15
0.001096 0.00199 0.007452
0.004385 0.007958 0.029807
0.009866 0.017906 0.067066
0.017539 0.031833 0.119229

20
0.013409
0.053635
0.120679
0.214541

25
30
0.022753 0.035813
0.091012 0.14325
0.204777 0.322313
0.364048 0.573001

Effects of Angle of Attack and Velocity on Drag

Drag (lbs)

0.6
0.4
0.2
40
30

0
0

20
10

15

20

Angle of Attack ( )

10
25

30

Velocity

scale model