The Secret of Flight

understanding why it is possible to fly

Basic Principle

To those who fear flying, it is probably disconcerting that physicists and aeronautical
engineers still passionately debate the fundamental issue underlying this endeavor:
what k eeps planes in the air? (Kenneth Chang, New York Times, Dec 9, 2003)
Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle. (Igor Sikorsky)

Velocity at 10,14 and 17 degrees angle of attack : red high velocity, blue low velocity.

Pressure iso-surfaces for 5 degrees angle of attack : Low pressure on top and high
pressure below leading edge, no high pressure on top at trailing edge = substantial lift.
The Mystery of Gliding Flight

The problem of explaining why it is possible to fly in the air using wings has haunted
scientists since the birth of mathematical sciences. To fly, an upward force on the wing,
referred to as lift L, has to be generated from the flow of air around the wing, while the air
resistance to motion or drag D, is small.

The mystery is how a large ratio L/D can be created. In the gliding flight of birds and
airplanes with fixed wings, L/D is typically between 10 and 20, which means that a good
glider can glide up to 20 meters upon loosing 1 meter in altitude, or that a 400 ton jumbojet
can cruise at an engine thrust of 20 tons, while about 400 tons is needed in take-off. By
elementary Newtonian mechanics, upward lift must be accompanied by downwash with the
wing redirecting air downwards.

The enigma of flight is how a wing generates substantial downwash; with downwash there
is lift. Classical mathematics and mechanics could not give an answer: Newton computed
the lift of a tilted flat plate bombarded by a horisontal stream of fluid particles from below
and obtained a disappointingly small lift, proportional to the square of the tilting angle
or angle of attack.

French mathematician d’Alembert followed up in 1752 with a computation based

on potential flow (inviscid incompressible irrotational steady flow), showing that both the
drag and lift of a wing is zero, referred to as d’Alembert’s paradox , since it contradicts
observations and thus belongs to pure fiction. We recall

The Secret Revealed in Four Basic Steps

1. The flow is incompressible with small skin friction and thus can only separate at
stagnation at the trailing edge (before stall).
2. Main lift is created by low pressure (negative) on top of the leading edge of high
speed flow in accordance with Bernoulli’s Principle.
3. Main drag is created by high pressure (positive) on the leading edge by low speed
flow in accordance with Bernoulli’s Principle.
4. Lift and drag from the leading edge are preserved by a specific flow separation pattern
at the trailing edge with alternating high and low pressure with zero mean.

Here 1. and 2. are the new elements of the New Theory, with 2. the most surprising and
intriguing, which are combined with the classical elements 3. and 4. relating to Bernoulli’s
Principle from 1738 bridging over 280 years.

D’Alembert’s Paradox and Potential Flow

Potential flow around a wing profile is depicted in the following figure showing low pressure
on top and high pressure below the leading edge creating lift:
Further inspection of the flow shows balancing high pressure on top and low pressure
below the trailing edge, which cancels the lift created at the leading edge to give zero lift
and also zero drag.

We also see that the direction of the outgoing flow is the same as the incoming flow, so
that the the flow is not re-directed, or in other words there is no down-wash with the
outgoing flow being directed downwards. The zero lift thus correspond to zero down-wash
and thus zero upwards reaction force on the wing. Down-wash is necessary for the
generation of lift.

D’Alembert could thus only give support to Newton’s prediction that flight is impossible.
But of course the flight of birds which could be observed by everyone remained a mystery.
To uncover the secret of flight D’Alembert’s Paradox had to be resolved, but nobody could
figure out a solution.

It remained unsolved until 2008 as a a deep trench separating theoretical mathematical

fluid mechanics from hydraulics as engineering fluid mechanics with

theoretical fluid mechanics explaining phenomena which could not be observed (zero
lift/drag)
hydraulics observing phenomena which could not be explained (non-zero lift/drag)

as expressed by Nobel Laurate Cyril Hinslewood.

Resolution of D’Alembert’s Paradox and Secret of Flight

In 2008 we presented a resolution of d’Alembert’s paradox which opened to an

explanation of how lift is generated by a wing in incompressible flow.

Watching the movies of pressure and velocity of turbulent computational solutions of

the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with slip/small friction boundary
conditions, around a three-dimensional Naca0012 wing under increasing angle of
attack, you can yourself uncover the secret of flight. What you see can be described in
pictures as follows:
We see potential flow with high pressure at the separation on top of the wing before the
trailing edge, being modified by

low-pressure counter-rotating rolls of streamwise vorticity generated at separation

avoiding the build up of high/low pressure at the trailing edge of potential flow
thereby generating both lift and drag
with lift alternatively as reaction to downwash.

The rolls of rotating flow generated at the trailing edge can be observed in the following
picture from the Dryden Water Channel:

Downwash
We understand that lift follows from downwash, and downwash from the low-pressure
rotational slip separation which also gives drag. We understand that lift comes with drag.

Potential flow has zero drag but also zero lift.

There is no free lunch: To fly requires work to overcome drag.

Here is a movie showing the counter-rotating rolls of stream wise vorticity watching the
trailing edge from behind.

SHARE THIS:

 Twitter 5  Facebook

 Like
Be the first to like this.

2 THOUGHTS ON “BASIC PRINCIPLE”

dota 2 cheats practice mode

on February 15, 2015 at 4:36 am said:

Hey I’m not sure if it’s me or maybe your website but it’s loading undoubtedly
slowly , I
had to spend like a couple of minutes to load but gmail
does work perfectly to me. Anyways, Thanks for placing such type of
excellent articles. I’m guessing it has already been necessary to many individuals .
This is actually wonderful everything that you have
done on this site and would like to see a lot more nice articles from your site.
To obtain additional knowledge through posts which you post, I actually have added
this url.

refnearn.com
on March 11, 2015 at 7:32 am said:

Hi! Your website is running lagging for my situation, the site consumed
like a moment to load, I personally do not know if it’s entirely
me or maybe your webpage but facebook worked acceptable for me.
Anyway, I appreciate you for writing an extraordinarily superb articles.
I’m assuming this has already been useful to many individuals .
I need to point out that you really have done brilliant work with this as well as wish
to see much more wonderful stuff through you. I already have you bookmarked to
check blogs you publish.

 Follow

Follow “The Secret

of Flight”
Get every new post delivered
to your Inbox.

Enter your email address

Sign me up

Build a website with WordPress.com