Karl Radison P.

Abrea AeE 401 - Aerospace Vehicle Performance

21 – 06137 September 19, 2022

DRAG
Drag is the aerodynamic force that opposes an aircraft's motion through the air. Drag is generated by every
part of the airplane (even the engines!). How is drag generated?

Drag is a mechanical force. It is generated by the interaction and contact of a solid body with a fluid (liquid
or gas). It is not generated by a force field, in the sense of a gravitational field or an electromagnetic field,
where one object can affect another object without being in physical contact. For drag to be generated, the
solid body must be in contact with the fluid. If there is no fluid, there is no drag. Drag is generated by the
difference in velocity between the solid object and the fluid. There must be motion between the object and
the fluid. If there is no motion, there is no drag. It makes no difference whether the object moves through a
static fluid or whether the fluid moves past a static solid object.

Drag is a force and is therefore a vector quantity having both a magnitude and a direction. Drag acts in a
direction that is opposite to the motion of the aircraft. Lift acts perpendicular to the motion. There are many
factors that affect the magnitude of the drag. Many of the factors also affect lift but there are some factors
that are unique to aircraft drag.

We can think of drag as aerodynamic friction, and one of the sources of drag is the skin friction between the
molecules of the air and the solid surface of the aircraft. Because the skin friction is an interaction between
a solid and a gas, the magnitude of the skin friction depends on properties of both solid and gas. For the
solid, a smooth, waxed surface produces less skin friction than a roughened surface. For the gas, the
magnitude depends on the viscosity of the air and the relative magnitude of the viscous forces to the
motion of the flow, expressed as the Reynolds number. Along the solid surface, a boundary layer of low
energy flow is generated and the magnitude of the skin friction depends on conditions in the boundary
layer.

We can also think of drag as aerodynamic resistance to the motion of the object through the fluid. This
source of drag depends on the shape of the aircraft and is called form drag. As air flows around a body, the
local velocity and pressure are changed. Since pressure is a measure of the momentum of the gas
molecules and a change in momentum produces a force, a varying pressure distribution will produce a
force on the body. We can determine the magnitude of the force by integrating (or adding up) the local
pressure times the surface area around the entire body. The component of the aerodynamic force that is
opposed to the motion is the drag; the component perpendicular to the motion is the lift. Both the lift and
drag force act through the center of pressure of the object.
There is an additional drag component caused by the generation of lift. Aerodynamicists have named this
component the induced drag. It is also called "drag due to lift" because it only occurs on finite, lifting wings.
Induced drag occurs because the distribution of lift is not uniform on a wing, but varies from root to tip. For
a lifting wing, there is a pressure difference between the upper and lower surfaces of the wing. Vortices are
formed at the wing tips, which produce a swirling flow that is very strong near the wing tips and decreases
toward the wing root. The local angle of attack of the wing is increased by the induced flow of the tip vortex,
giving an additional, downstream-facing, component to the aerodynamic force acting on the wing. The force
is called induced drag because it has been "induced" by the action of the tip vortices. The magnitude of
induced drag depends on the amount of lift being generated by the wing and on the distribution of lift across
the span. Long, thin (chordwise) wings have low induced drag; short wings with a large chord have high
induced drag. Wings with an elliptical distribution of lift have the minimum induced drag. Modern airliners
use winglets to reduce the induced drag of the wing.

Two additional sources of drag are wave drag and ram drag. As an aircraft approaches the speed of sound,
shock waves are generated along the surface. The shock waves produce a change in static pressure and a
loss of total pressure. Wave drag is associated with the formation of the shock waves. The magnitude of
the wave drag depends on the Mach number of the flow. Ram drag is produced when free stream air is
brought inside the aircraft. Jet engines bring air on board, mix the air with fuel, burn the fuel, then exhausts
the combustion products to produce thrust. If we look at the basic thrust equation, there is a mass flow
times entrance velocity term that is subtracted from the gross thrust. This "negative thrust" term is the ram
drag. Cooling inlets on the aircraft are also sources of ram drag.

TYPES OF DRAG
Drag is the force that resists movement of an aircraft through the air. There are two basic types: parasite
drag and induced drag. The first is called parasite because it in no way functions to aid flight, while the
second, induced drag, is a result of an airfoil developing lift.

Parasite Drag
Parasite drag is comprised of all the forces that work to slow an aircraft’s movement. As the term parasite
implies, it is the drag that is not associated with the production of lift. This includes the displacement of the
air by the aircraft, turbulence generated in the airstream, or a hindrance of air moving over the surface of
the aircraft and airfoil. There are three types of parasite drag: form drag, interference drag, and skin friction.

Form Drag
Form drag is the portion of parasite drag generated by the aircraft due to its shape and airflow around it.
Examples include the engine cowlings, antennas, and the aerodynamic shape of other components. When
the air has to separate to move around a moving aircraft and its components, it eventually rejoins after
passing the body. How quickly and smoothly it rejoins is representative of the resistance that it creates,
which requires additional force to overcome.
 Drag is the easiest to reduce when designing an aircraft. The solution
is to streamline as many of the parts as possible.

Interference Drag
Interference drag comes from the intersection of airstreams that
creates eddy currents, turbulence, or restricts smooth airflow. For
example, the intersection of the wing and the fuselage at the wing root
has significant interference drag. Air flowing around the fuselage
collides with air flowing over the wing, merging into a current of air
different from the two original currents. The most interference drag is observed when two surfaces meet at
perpendicular angles. Fairings are used to reduce this tendency. If a jet fighter carries two identical wing
tanks, the overall drag is greater than the sum of the individual tanks because both of these create and
generate interference drag. Fairings and distance between lifting surfaces and external components (such
as radar antennas hung from wings) reduce interference drag.

Skin Friction Drag

Skin friction drag is the aerodynamic
resistance due to the contact of moving air
with the surface of an aircraft. Every surface,
no matter how apparently smooth, has a
rough, ragged surface when viewed under a
microscope. The air molecules, which come in
direct contact with the surface of the wing, are
virtually motionless. Each layer of molecules
above the surface moves slightly faster until
the molecules are moving at the velocity of the
air moving around the aircraft. This speed is
called the free-stream velocity. The area
between the wing and the free-stream velocity level is about as wide as a playing card and is called the
boundary layer. At the top of the boundary layer, the molecules increase velocity and move at the same
speed as the molecules outside the boundary layer. The actual speed at which the molecules move
depends upon the shape of the wing, the viscosity (stickiness) of the air through which the wing or airfoil is
moving, and its compressibility (how much it can be compacted).

The airflow outside of the boundary layer reacts to the shape of the edge of the boundary layer just as it
would to the physical surface of an object. The boundary layer gives any object an “effective” shape that is
usually slightly different from the physical shape. The boundary layer may also separate from the body,
thus creating an effective shape much different from the physical shape of the object. This change in the
physical shape of the boundary layer causes a dramatic decrease in lift and an increase in drag. When this
happens, the airfoil has stalled. In order to reduce the effect of skin friction drag, aircraft designers utilize
flush mount rivets and remove any irregularities that may protrude above the wing surface. In addition, a
smooth and glossy finish aids in transition of air across the surface of the wing. Since dirt on an aircraft
disrupts the free flow of air and increases drag, keep the surfaces of an aircraft clean and waxed.

Induced Drag
The second basic type of drag is induced drag. It is an established physical fact that no system that does
work in the mechanical sense can be 100 percent efficient. This means that whatever the nature of the
system, the required work is obtained at the expense of certain additional work that is dissipated or lost in
the system. The more efficient the system, the smaller this loss.
In level flight, the aerodynamic properties of a wing or rotor produce a required lift, but this can be obtained
only at the expense of a certain penalty. The name given to this penalty is induced drag. Induced drag is
inherent whenever an airfoil is producing lift and, in fact, this type of drag is inseparable from the production
of lift. Consequently, it is always present if lift is produced.
An airfoil (wing or rotor blade) produces the lift force by making use of the energy of the free airstream.
Whenever an airfoil is producing lift, the pressure on the lower surface of it is greater than that on the upper
surface (Bernoulli’s Principle). As a result, the air tends to flow from the high pressure area below the tip
upward to the low pressure area on the upper surface. In the vicinity of the tips, there is a tendency for
these pressures to equalize, resulting in a lateral flow outward from the underside to the upper surface.
This lateral flow imparts a rotational velocity to the air at the tips, creating vortices that trail behind the
airfoil.

When the aircraft is viewed from the tail, these vortices circulate
counterclockwise about the right tip and clockwise about the left
tip. As the air (and vortices) roll off the back of your wing, they
angle down, which is known as downwash. It shows the difference
in downwash at altitude versus near the ground. Bearing in mind
the direction of rotation of these vortices, it can be seen that they
induce an upward flow of air beyond the tip and a downwash flow
behind the wing’s trailing edge. This induced downwash has
nothing in common with the downwash that is necessary to
produce lift. It is, in fact, the source of induced drag.

Downwash points the relative wind downward, so the more downwash

you have, the more your relative wind points downward. That's
important for one very good reason: lift is always perpendicular to the
relative wind. You can see that when you have less downwash, your lift
vector is more vertical, opposing gravity. And when you have more
downwash, your lift vector points back more, causing induced drag. On
top of that, it takes energy for your wings to create downwash and
vortices, and that energy creates drag.
Drag Polar
The drag curve or drag polar is the relationship between the drag on an aircraft and other variables, such
as lift, the coefficient of lift, angle-of-attack or speed. It may be described by an equation or displayed as a
graph (sometimes called a "polar plot"). Drag may be expressed as actual drag or the coefficient of drag.

Drag curves are closely related to other curves which do not show drag, such as the power required/speed
curve, or the sink rate/speed curve.

The significant aerodynamic properties of aircraft wings are summarised by two dimensionless quantities,
the lift and drag coefficients CL and CD. Like other such aerodynamic quantities, they are functions only of
the angle of attack α, the Reynolds number Re and the Mach number M. C L and CD can be plotted against
α, or can be plotted against each other.

The lift and the drag forces, L and D, are scaled by the same factor to get C L and CD, so . L and D
are at right angles, with D parallel to the free stream velocity (the relative velocity of the surrounding distant
air), so the resultant force R lies at the same angle to D as the line from the origin of the graph to the
corresponding CL, CD point does to the CD axis.

If an aerodynamic surface is held at a fixed angle of attack in a wind tunnel, and the magnitude and
direction of the resulting force are measured, they can be plotted using polar coordinates. When this
measurement is repeated at different angles of attack the drag curve is obtained. Lift and drag data was
gathered in this way in the 1880s by Otto Lilienthal and around 1910 by Gustav Eiffel, though not presented
in terms of the more recent coefficients. Eiffel was the first to use the name "drag polar", however drag
curves are rarely plotted today using polar coordinates.

Depending on the aircraft type, it may be necessary to plot drag curves at different Reynolds and Mach
numbers. The design of a fighter will require drag curves for different Mach numbers, whereas gliders,
which spend their time either flying slowly in thermals or rapidly between them, may require curves at
different Reynolds numbers but are unaffected by compressibility effects. During the evolution of the design
the drag curve will be refined. A particular aircraft may have different curves even at the same Re and M
values, depending for example on whether undercarriage and flaps are deployed.

The accompanying diagram shows CL against CD for a typical light aircraft. The minimum CD point is at the
left-most point on the plot. One component of drag is induced drag (an inevitable side-effect of producing
lift, which can be reduced by increasing the indicated airspeed). This is proportional to C L2. The other drag
mechanisms, parasitic and wave drag, have both constant components, totalling C D0, and lift-dependent
contributions that increase in proportion to CL2. In total, then
The effect of CL0 is to shift the curve up the graph; physically this is caused by some vertical asymmetry,
such as a cambered wing or a finite angle of incidence, which ensures the minimum drag attitude produces
lift and increases the maximum lift-to-drag ratio.