Subsonic Flow Characteristics

Topics Covered in this session:

!! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5
Overview Moving Airplane In Stationary Air or Moving Air Over Stationary Airplane? Streamlines Airflow Characteristics versus Mach Number Constant Density or Incompressible Flow

What needs to be done prior to class (WNTBPC)

!! Read the ANA text pages 4 through 9, Bernoullis
principle and subsonic airflow, and Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK) p. 2-4 Airfoil Design through p.2-6 High Pressure Below.

!! Watch this lecture !! Create your own notes in word, save it as a .pdf
version of notes

and post it in Dropbox as homework. !! This should be no more than a page of YOUR OWN

1. Overview
!! Characteristics of Subsonic airflow !! Drawings of stationary vs moving airflow !! Use of streamlines as graphic and visual depiction
of invisible airflow

!! Subsonic airflow!! Density changes are negligible !! Considered incompressible

2. Airplane moving through stationary air, or air moving over stationary airplane?
!! Airplane in flight is moving through non-moving
(stationary) air.

!! Studying aerodynamics on the ground we must

blow moving air over a stationary airplane.

!! Leonardo Da Vinci:
!! The action of a medium upon a body is the same
whether the body moves in the quiescent medium, or whether the particles of the medium impinge with the same velocity upon the quiescent body.

3. Streamlines
!! Streamlines are a visible representation of an
invisible airflow

Streamline Relationships

4. Airflow Characteristic versus Mach number

!! Mach number is defined as airflow (or aircraft)
velocity divided by the local speed of sound:

Airplane velocity vs Airflow velocity

!
As Aircraft moves through the air shape causes some airflow to be faster than aircraft, some airflow is slower compared to AIRCRAFT VELOCITY

Mach numbers
!! Airflow traveling slower than M = 1 is called
subsonic flow. Airflow traveling faster than M = 1 is called supersonic flow. Subsonic and supersonic flows have very different pressure, temperature, and density characteristics.

5. Constant Density or Incompressible Flow

!! Subsonic flow:
!! Constant density or incompressible flow

!! Symbol for air density is rho .

!! Air density decreases as altitude increases and vice versa. !! At a constant altitude, the air density of subsonic flow is a
constant for all practical purposes. !! Therefore, rho is constant in subsonic flow at a given
altitude.

!! !In aerodynamics, incompressible flow means the

density does not change. It does NOT mean that the pressure does not change! Pressure in fact does change depending on the circumstances.

Review
!! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5
Overview Moving Airplane In Stationary Air or Moving Air Over Stationary Airplane? Streamlines Airflow Characteristics versus Mach Number Constant Density or Incompressible Flow