Skin friction drag depends predominantly on the area exposed to the surrounding flow, which is usually called the "wetted area", whereas vortex‐induced drag is primarily a function of wing span. However, designers of a supersonic cruising vehicle (SCV) have to contend with substantial wave drag associated with the volume of the primary aircraft components. This chapter provides a scheme that illustrates how the aerodynamic force acting on an SCV can be decomposed according to several schemes associated with the method used to derive the separate components. The most fundamental approach is decomposing the drag into distributed normal pressure forces and shear forces on the plane's area exposed to the flow. The most significant difference between subsonic and supersonic cruising vehicles is the external shape of their major components, which are characterized as slender bodies in the sense that their crosswise dimensions, such as thickness and span, are small compared to their length.


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    Title :

    Aerodynamic Drag in Cruising Flight


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2020-07-07


    Size :

    23 pages




    Type of media :

    Article/Chapter (Book)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English