4/12/2019 What Is Aerodynamics?

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What Is Aerodynamics?
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
By Jim Lucas, Live Science Contributor | September 20, 2014 01:05am ET
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HISTORY 
Aerodynamics is the study of how gases interact with moving bodies.
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Because the gas that we encounter most is air, aerodynamics is
primarily concerned with the forces of drag and lift, which are caused
SPACE  by air passing over and around solid bodies. Engineers apply the
How fast?
principles of aerodynamics to the designs of many di erent things,
including buildings, bridges and even soccer balls; however, of primary
  
Credit: Bloodhound
concern is the aerodynamics of aircraft and automobiles. 
SSC

Aerodynamics comes into play in the study of ight and the science of
building and operating an aircraft, which is called aeronautics. Aeronautical engineers use
the fundamentals of aerodynamics to design aircraft that y through the Earth's
atmosphere. 

Aerodynamic drag
The most signi cant aerodynamic force that applies to nearly everything that moves
through the air is drag. Drag is the force that opposes an aircraft's motion through the air,
according to NASA. Drag is generated in the direction the air is moving when it encounters a
solid object. In most cases, such as in automobiles and aircraft, drag is undesirable because
it takes power to overcome it. There are, however, some cases when drag is bene cial, such
as with parachutes, for example. 

To describe the amount of drag on an object, we use a value called the drag coe cient (cd).
This number depends not only on the shape of the object but also on other factors, such as
its speed and surface roughness, the density of the air and whether the ow is laminar
(smooth) or turbulent. Forces that a ect drag include the air pressure against the face of the×
object, the friction along the sides of the object and the relatively negative pressure, or
suction, on the back of the object. For example, cd for a at plate moving face-on through

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4/12/2019 What Is Aerodynamics?

the air is about 1.3, a face-on cube is about 1, a sphere is about 0.5 and a teardrop shape is

about 0.05. The drag coe cient for modern automobiles is 0.25 to 0.35, and for aircraft it is
0.01 to 0.03. Calculating cd can be complicated. For this reason, it is usually determined by
computer simulations or wind tunnel experiments.
NEWS

Aerodynamics
TECH of aircraft

In order to overcome drag forces, an aircraft must generate thrust. This is accomplished
HEALTH 
with a motor-driven propeller or a jet engine. When the airplane is in level ight at a
constant speed, the force of the thrust is just enough to counteract the aerodynamic drag. 
PLANET EARTH 
Moving air can also generate forces in a di erent direction from the ow. The force that
keeps an airplane from falling is called lift. Lift is generated by an aircraft wing. The path
STRANGE NEWS 
over a wing's curved top is longer than the path along the at bottom of the wing. This
causes the air to move faster over the top than it does along the bottom. With all other
ANIMALS  moving air has lower pressure than slower moving air, according
factors being equal, faster
to Bernoulli's principle, stated by Daniel Bernoulli, one of the most important pioneers in
the eld of uid dynamics.
HISTORY  This di erence is what allows the slower moving air to push up
against the bottom of the wing with greater force than the faster moving air is pushing
down against the top of the wing. In level ight, this upward force is just enough to
CULTURE 
counteract the downward force caused by gravity. 

Aerodynamic forces arealso used to control an aircraft in ight. When the Wright brothers
SPACE
made their rst ight in 1903, they needed a way to control their aircraft to climb, descend,

bank and turn.They developed what is known as three-axis control for pitch, roll and yaw.
Pitch (nose pointing up or down) is controlled by an elevator (the " aps") on the back or
trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizer in the tail section. Roll (tilting left or right) is
controlled by ailerons (also aps) on the trailing edges of the wings near the tips. Yaw (nose
pointing left or right) is controlled by the rudder on the trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer
in the tail section. These controls employ Newton's Third Law of Motion because they
generate force by de ecting the air ow in the opposite direction of the desired movement.
This force is also what allows aerobatic planes to y upside down. 

A pilot may also use aps on the inboard section of the trailing edge of the wing during
takeo and landing. When in the downward position, aps increase both lift and drag to
allow the plane to y slower without stalling. Some larger aircraft can also extend slats on
the front or leading edges of the wings to increase lift at low speeds.

When the smooth air ow over a plane's wing is disrupted and this reduces the amount of
lift, a stall can occur. According to the Federal Aviation Administration's Airplane Flying
Handbook, "This is caused when the wing exceeds its critical angle of attack. This can occur
at any airspeed, in any attitude, with any power setting." Typically, most stalls occur when an
aircraft is moving too slowly with the nose at too high of an upward angle. The air no longer
ows along the top surface but instead breaks away and forms turbulent swirls on top of
the wing. This causes the plane to lose lift and start to fall, sometimes rather abruptly. 

Another thing that can happen in an airplane is a spin. The Airplane Flying Handbook ×
de nes a spin as "an aggravated stall that results in what is termed 'autorotation' wherein
the airplane follows a downward corkscrew path." This usually occurs in a slow turn when

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4/12/2019 What Is Aerodynamics?

the slower inside wing stalls, and the outside wing is still generating lift. "Especially at low

altitude, successful spin recovery may be di cult if not impossible in many aircraft,"
according to Scot Campbell, a doctoral candidate in Aerospace Engineering at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
NEWS  and Donald Talleur, an assistant chief ight instructor at
the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation, writing in "The Aerodynamics of a Spin," for the
Canadian Owners and Pilots Association. One reason for this is the danger of going into a
TECH 
at spin in which both wings and all of the control surfaces are stalled, and the aircraft falls
like a maple tree seed. 
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

PLANET
WhenEARTH
a fluid is moving faster, ithas lower pressure. This principle explains the lift created by an airplane’s wing.
Credit: NASA Quest.

STRANGE NEWS 
Aerodynamics of automobiles
ANIMALS 
Automobiles started using aerodynamic body shapes in the early part of their history. As
engines became more powerful
HISTORY  and cars became faster, automobile engineers realized that
wind resistance signi cantly hindered their speed. The rst cars to adopt improved
aerodynamics, or streamlining, were racing cars and those attempting to break the land
CULTURE 
speed record. 

SPACE 
"Dreamers, engineers, racers and entrepreneurs were lured by the potential for the
profound gains aerodynamics o ered," wrote Paul Niedermeyer, author of "Automotive
History:An Illustrated
 History Of Automotive Aerodynamics," on the website Curbside
Classic. "The e orts to do so yielded some of the more remarkable cars ever made, even if
they challenged the aesthetic assumptions of their times."

Regarding the aerodynamics of a racing car, Dr. Joe David, professor of mechanical and
aerospace engineering, and known as "Mr. Stock Car" at North Carolina State University,
said, "Most of the horsepower generated by a racing engine is eaten up by the high-
pressure air pushing the front of the car and the low-pressure air — a partial vacuum —
dragging at the car from behind."

However, drag cannot be the only consideration. While lift is desirable for an airplane, it can
be dangerous for an automobile. In order to maintain better control for steering and
braking, cars are designed so the wind exerts a downward force as their speed increases.
However, increasing this downward force increases drag, which in turn increases fuel
consumption and limits speed, so these two forces must be carefully balanced. 

Many classes of racing cars use movable winglike airfoils to adjust the downward force of
the air on the car. When setting up a racing car, one must also consider turbulence caused
by other cars on the track. This requires setting the airfoils on the car to produce a greater
downward force during the race than is needed for qualifying when the car is on the track
by itself. This is why lap times during quali cation are usually much faster than they are
during the race. 
×
Many of the same aerodynamic principles used in racing also apply to regular cars and
trucks. Automotive engineers use computer simulations and wind tunnel experiments with

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4/12/2019 What Is Aerodynamics?

scale models and actual vehicles to ne-tune the aerodynamics of automobiles so they

generate the optimum amount of downward force to the front and back wheels with the
least possible amount of drag. 
NEWS 
Additional resources
TECH 
See a gallery of some really cool streamlined automobiles at Curbside Classic's

HEALTHIllustrated History ofAutomotive Aerodynamics.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's website has activities and
PLANETmultimedia
EARTH projects about "How Things Fly."
Measure the drag coe cient of your car in an experiment on the Instructables
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website. 

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