MAE 3241: Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics Name: _________________

March 4, 2005 Exam #2

Exam is worth 100 points and has 4 questions (20/30/30/30). Read each question
carefully and show all your work.

Short Answer Questions (5 Points Each): Answer these questions using as few words
as possible or brief quantitative analysis when appropriate.

1. Will an NACA 2415 airfoil produce lift when it is flying upside down?

2. The baseball shown in the picture is

immersed in a subsonic wind tunnel and
smoke is injected to visualize the
streamlines. Draw the direction of the lift
force on the baseball:

3. An offshore power plant cooling-water intake sucks in Intake

1500 ft3/s in water 30 ft deep, as shown in the figure on
the right. If the tidal velocity approaching the intake is 1
ft/s, how far downstream does the intake effect extend?

4. An NACA 2415 airfoil has a chord length of 2 meters.

a. What is the maximum thickness of this airfoil?

b. What is the maximum camber of this airfoil and where is it located?

c. What is the value of the lift slope?

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Question 2 (30 Points):
Thus far, all of the vortex examples that we have examined involved stationary vortices.
A more useful representation, such as that used to model moving blades in an aircraft
engine, employ potential flow models of vortices with motion.

Suppose a vortex is in steady motion (non-accelerating) with a velocity V parallel to the

vertical direction as shown in the sketch below:

Vortex is moving at a
steady velocity = V 

Fixed Point A

1. Write an expression for the stream function for this uniformly translating vortex
with respect to the fixed point A. Note that the perpendicular (horizontal) distance
between the moving vortex and point A is a constant and may be denoted as a.
2. Write down the Cartesian velocity components u and v.
3. If the vortex strength, =2 m2/s, the perpendicular distance a=1 m, and the
vortex translational velocity, V=1 m/s, sketch the magnitude of the velocity at
point A induced by the vortex. Another way of saying this would be, sketch the
velocity than an observer at point A would see with time. Assume that at time t=0
the vortex and the observer at point A are located on the same horizontal datum.

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Question 3 (30 Points):
An airplane wing is mounted in a subsonic wind tunnel with 10:1 contraction ratio. The
wing is of uniform cross-section with a NACA 1412 airfoil and completely spans the test
section so that the flow sees essentially an infinite wing. The wing planform area is 0.5
m2. The lift is measured with a mechanical balance that is rated for a maximum force of
5,000 N; that is, if the lift of the wing exceeds 5,000 N, the balance will be damaged.
During a given test of this airfoil, the plan is to rotate the model through its entire range
of angle of attack, including up to that for maximum cl.

Calculate the maximum pressure difference allowable between the wind tunnel settling
chamber and the test section, assuming standard sea level density in the test section
(=1.23 kg/m3 and =1.8x10-5 kg/m s).

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Question 4 (30 Points):
The figure below shows the flow over a cylinder with circulation, as discussed in class.


V∞

If we define an “angle of attack”, , as the angle between the horizontal and the
stagnation streamline, derive a relationship between the lift coefficient, c l, as a function of
the angle of attack.

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