Lift-induced drag

In aerodynamics, lift-induced drag, induced drag, vortex drag, or sometimes drag due to lift, is
a drag force that occurs whenever a moving object redirects the airflow coming at it. This drag force
occurs in airplanes due to wings or a lifting body redirecting air to cause lift and also in cars with
airfoil wings that redirect air to cause a downforce. With other parameters remaining the same,
induced drag increases as the angle of attack increases.

Source of induced drag

Induced drag is related to the amount of induced downwash in the vicinity of the wing. The grey
vertical line labeled "L" is perpendicular to the free stream and indicates the orientation of the lift
on the wing. The red vector labeled "Leff" is perpendicular to the actual airflow in the vicinity of the
wing; it represents the lift on the airfoil section in twodimensional flow at the same angle of attack.
The lift generated by the wing has been tilted rearwards through an angle equal to the angle of the
downwash in three-dimensional flow. The component of "Leff" parallel to the free stream is the
induced drag on the wing.
Lift is produced by the changing direction of the flow around a wing. The change of direction
results in a change of velocity (even if there is no speed change, just as seen in uniform circular
motion), which is an acceleration. To change the direction of the flow therefore requires that a force
be applied to the fluid; lift is simply the reaction force of the fluid acting on the wing.
When producing lift, air below the wing is generally at a higher pressure than the air pressure above
the wing, while air above the wing is generally at a lower than atmospheric pressure. On a wing of
finite span, this pressure difference causes air to flow from the lower surface wing root, around the
wingtip, towards the upper surface wing root. This spanwise flow of air combines with chordwise
flowing air, causing a change in speed and direction, which twists the airflow and produces vortices
along the wing trailing edge. The vortices created are unstable, and they quickly combine to
produce wingtip vortices. The resulting vortices change the speed and direction of the airflow
behind the trailing edge, deflecting it downwards, and thus inducing downwash behind the wing.
Wingtip vortices modify the airflow around a wing. Compared to a wing of infinite span, vortices
reduce the effectiveness of the wing to generate lift, thus requiring a higher angle of attack to
compensate, which tilts the total aerodynamic force rearwards. The angular deflection is small and
has little effect on the lift. However, there is an increase in the drag equal to the product of the lift
force and the angle through which it is deflected. Since the deflection is itself a function of the lift,
the additional drag is proportional to the square of the lift.

The total aerodynamic force is usually thought of as two components, lift and drag. By definition,
the component of force parallel to the oncoming flow is called drag; and the component
perpendicular to the oncoming flow is called lift. At practical angles of attack the lift greatly
exceeds the drag.

Reducing induced drag

According to the equations below, a wing of infinite aspect ratio (wingspan/chord length) and
constant airfoil section would seemingly produce no induced drag per unit of surface area (although
this depends on what happens to the factor e). The characteristics of such a wing can be measured
on a section of wing spanning the width of a wind tunnel, since the walls block spanwise flow and
create what is effectively two-dimensional flow. However, in reality, there will still be more drag
(induced drag) when the angle of attack is high than when it is zero or slightly negative.
A rectangular wing produces much more severe wingtip vortices than a tapered or elliptical wing,
therefore many modern wings are tapered. However, an elliptical planform is more efficient as the
induced downwash (and therefore the effective angle of attack) is constant across the whole of the
wingspan. Few aircraft have this planform because of manufacturing complications the most
famous examples being the World War II Spitfire and Thunderbolt. Tapered wings with straight
leading and trailing edges can approximate to elliptical lift distribution. Typically, straight wings
produce between 515% more induced drag than an elliptical wing.
Similarly, a high aspect ratio wing will produce less induced drag than a wing of low aspect ratio
because the size of the wing vortices will be much reduced on a longer, thinner wing. Induced drag
can therefore be said to be inversely proportional to aspect ratio. The lift distribution may also be
modified by the use of washout, a spanwise twist of the wing to reduce the incidence towards the
wingtips, and by changing the airfoil section near the wingtips. This allows more lift to be generated
at the wing root and less towards the wingtip, which causes a reduction in the strength of the
wingtip vortices.
Some early aircraft had fins mounted on the tips of the tailplane which served as endplates. More
recent aircraft have wingtip mounted winglets or wing fences to oppose the formation of vortices.
Wingtip mounted fuel tanks may also provide some benefit, by preventing the spanwise flow of air
around the wingtip.

Calculation of induced drag

For a planar wing with an elliptical lift distribution, induced drag is often calculated as follows.
These equations make the induced drag depend on the square of the lift, for a given aspect ratio and
surface area (while varying the angle of attack), but as the accompanying graph shows, this is only
an approximation and is not valid at high angles of attack (and probably not for very high values of
aspect ratio either).

where
and

Thus

Hence

where:
is the aspect ratio,
is the induced drag coefficient (see Lifting-line theory),

is the lift coefficient,

is the induced drag,
is the wing span efficiency value by which the induced drag exceeds that of an elliptical lift
distribution, typically 0.85 to 0.95,
is the lift,
is the gross wing area: the product of the wing span and the Mean Aerodynamic Chord.[1]
is the true airspeed,
is the equivalent airspeed,
is the air density and
is 1.225 kg/m, the air density at sea level, ISA conditions.