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Lift and drag in two-dimensional steady viscous and compressible flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2015

L. Q. Liu
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China
J. Y. Zhu
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China
J. Z. Wu*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, PR China
*
†Email address for correspondence: jzwu@coe.pku.edu.cn

Abstract

This paper studies the lift and drag experienced by a body in a two-dimensional, viscous, compressible and steady flow. By a rigorous linear far-field theory and the Helmholtz decomposition of the velocity field, we prove that the classic lift formula $L=-{\it\rho}_{0}U{\it\Gamma}_{{\it\phi}}$ , originally derived by Joukowski in 1906 for inviscid potential flow, and the drag formula $D={\it\rho}_{0}UQ_{{\it\psi}}$ , derived for incompressible viscous flow by Filon in 1926, are universally true for the whole field of viscous compressible flow in a wide range of Mach number, from subsonic to supersonic flows. Here, ${\it\Gamma}_{{\it\phi}}$ and $Q_{{\it\psi}}$ denote the circulation of the longitudinal velocity component and the inflow of the transverse velocity component, respectively. We call this result the Joukowski–Filon theorem (J–F theorem for short). Thus, the steady lift and drag are always exactly determined by the values of ${\it\Gamma}_{{\it\phi}}$ and $Q_{{\it\psi}}$ , no matter how complicated the near-field viscous flow surrounding the body might be. However, velocity potentials are not directly observable either experimentally or computationally, and hence neither are the J–F formulae. Thus, a testable version of the J–F formulae is also derived, which holds only in the linear far field. Due to their linear dependence on the vorticity, these formulae are also valid for statistically stationary flow, including time-averaged turbulent flow. Thus, a careful RANS (Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes) simulation is performed to examine the testable version of the J–F formulae for a typical airfoil flow with Reynolds number $Re=6.5\times 10^{6}$ and free Mach number $M\in [0.1,2.0]$ . The results strongly support and enrich the J–F theorem. The computed Mach-number dependence of $L$ and $D$ and its underlying physics, as well as the physical implications of the theorem, are also addressed.

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Papers
Copyright
© 2015 Cambridge University Press 
Figure 0

Figure 1. The pressure coefficient distribution of an RAE-2822 airfoil at $Re=6.5\times 10^{6}$, $M=0.729$, ${\it\alpha}=2.31^{\circ }$. Solid line shows the numerical results and ● shows the experimental data from Cook et al. (1979).

Figure 1

Figure 2. Mach-number dependence of lift coefficients of an RAE-2822 airfoil at $Re=6.5\times 10^{6}$. Solid line shows results from the wall-stress integral. Results given by the TJ–F lift formula (4.37a,b) with ${\it\Gamma}_{C}$ calculated along the contour with wake line position $X_{W}$. Dashed–dotted line, $X_{W}=1$; dashed–dotted–dotted line, $X_{W}=2$; short-dashed line, $X_{W}=5$. (a) ${\it\alpha}=2.31^{\circ }$; (b) ${\it\alpha}=5.0^{\circ }$.

Figure 2

Table 1. Validation of mesh size and time-step size at $M=0.8$. The lift and drag coefficients are computed by (2.8c).

Figure 3

Figure 3. Vorticity contour of an RAE-2822 airfoil at $Re=6.5\times 10^{6},{\it\alpha}=2.31^{\circ }$ with shown range ${\it\omega}\in [-5.0,5.0]$. Solid line indicates ${\it\omega}>0$ and dashed line indicates${\it\omega}<0$, with interval 0.53. (a) $M=0.75$, ${\it\omega}\times 10^{-4}\in (-4.9,1.2)$; (b) $M=0.85$, ${\it\omega}\times 10^{-4}\in (-3.0,1.3)$.

Figure 4

Figure 4. Mach-number contour of an RAE-2822 airfoil at $Re=6.5\times 10^{6},{\it\alpha}=2.31^{\circ }$. Solid line indicates $M\geqslant 1$ and dashed line indicates $M<1$, with interval 0.05. (a) $M=0.75$; (b) $M=0.85$.

Figure 5

Figure 5. Mach-number dependence of drag coefficients of an RAE-2822 airfoil at $Re=6.5\times 10^{6}$. Solid line shows results from the wall-stress integral. Results given by the TJ–F drag formula (4.37c,d) with $Q_{W}$ calculated along the wake line whose position is $X_{W}$. Dashed–dotted line, $X_{W}=50$; dashed–dotted–dotted line, $X_{W}=100$; short-dashed line, $X_{W}=400$. (a) ${\it\alpha}=2.31^{\circ }$; (b) ${\it\alpha}=5.0^{\circ }$.

Figure 6

Figure 6. Far-field view of the disturbance pressure contours of an RAE-2822 airfoil at $Re=6.5\times 10^{6},M=1.4,{\it\alpha}=2.31^{\circ }$. Solid line is $p^{\prime }>0$ and dashed line is $p^{\prime }<0$. (a) Numerical result. (b) Analytical solution calculated by (2.12) with $Re=100$ to make the narrow Mach-line strips distinguishable.