Design of Supercritical Aerofoils

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Abstract
Summary A survey is given of experimental results on a series of aerofoils designed in recent years, first at the National Physical Laboratory and later at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, with the intention of operating at relatively high subsonic Mach numbers (around 0.8) with, on the upper surface, a large extent of supercritical flow, terminated by a weak shock wave. The paper describes the design of a basic aerofoil, together with some modifications to it which were successful in improving its performance at both high and low speeds. It is shown that the best of these aerofoils, with thickness/chord ratio 0.105, has a drag rise Mach number of 0.80 at a lift coefficient of 0.5, thus comparing favourably in this respect with other published examples; its maximum lift coefficient at low speeds, 1.2, is also satisfactory for an aerofoil of this thickness. In a final section some comparisons are given between these experimental results and some theoretical calculations by the finite-difference method of Garabedian and Korn, including a partial allowance for viscous effects. It is concluded that, although reasonable overall agreement with experiment is often obtained, further improvements in this theory are needed before it can be used with confidence for practical purposes.

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