AEROFOIL BLADE TERMINOLOGIES

Contents
• Aerofoil blades (Nomenclature)
• Lift and drag forces
• Turbine cascade
• Compressor cascade
Aerofoil blades(Nomenclature)
• In every turbomachine components the so called blades are continuously
interacting with the fluid flowing past the blades. Therefore to exploit the
most from fluid-blade energy interaction aerodynamic modelling of the
blade profile is inevitable.
• Aerofoil is the engineered shape of the blade used in almost all
turbomachine components (buckets are exceptions in Pelton turbines).
The airfoil has a smoothly rounded front (Leading edge) and thin back
(trailing edge).
• Leading edge: The leading edge profile is smooth and rounded so that
the flow would experience less turbulence and follows the blade profile.
• Trailing edge: It is a thin rear part of the blade so that flow separation
and back flow could be minimized.
Flow angle(): It is the angle which the fluid absolute inlet velocity makes
with the axial axis in axial flow machines and with the radial axis in radial
flow machines.
Blade angle (): It is the angle which the blade camber line forms with the
axial axis in axial flow machines and the radial axis in radial flow machines.
Angle of incidence (): Also called angle of attack. It is the difference
between the flow angle and the blade angle at the inlet.
• Camber Line: It is an imaginary center line between the upper and lower
aerofoil profiles.
• Chord Line: is the line that connects the leading edge to the trailing edge.
• Pitch: is the tangential distance between two successive aerofoil blades.
• Stagger angle (): It is the angle which the chord line forms with the reference
line (the axial line in case of axial flow and the radial line in case of radial flow).
• Camber angle (): It is the change in angle of the camber line between the
leading edge and trailing edge.

• Deflection angle (): It is the angle through which the absolute flow is deflected
from inlet to outlet of the blade.

• Deviation angle (): It is the angle the relative flow velocity makes with the
blade angle at the trailing edge due to flow separation.