M&AE 305 October 24, 2006

Wings with Elliptic Span Loading

D. A. Caughey
Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853-7501
These notes provide, as a supplement to our textbook [2], a description of the analysis used to
demonstrate the properties of elliptic span loading for wings of nite span.
1 The Elliptical Load Distribution
For a wing with an elliptical spanwise load distribution the sectional lift, or lift per unit span , as
a function of the spanwise coordinate y can be written
(y) =
0

1
_
2y
b
_
2
, (1)
where b is the wing span and
0
is the maximum sectional lift (at the center of the wing). The value
of
0
can be related to the wing lift coecient by noting that the integral across the span of the
section lift is the total lift L, or
L =
_
b/2
b/2

1
_
2y
b
_
2
dy . (2)
This integral can be evaluated using the trigonometric substitution
cos =
2y
b
, (3)
which gives
L =

0
b
2
_

0
sin
2
d =

0
b
4
. (4)
Note that this integral could also have been evaluated using the fact that the area of an ellipse is
simply times the product of its semi-minor (
0
) and semi-major (b/2) axes. The lift coecient is
thus given by
C
L
=
L
1
2
U
2
S
=

0
b
2U
2
S
. (5)
Now, the downwash velocity w
i
(y) (taken positive downward) is related to the distribution of vor-
ticity () across the span by
w
i
(y) =
1
4
_
b/2
b/2
()
y
d , (6)
where the strength of the vortex sheet is related to the spanwise loading by
() =
d
d
=
1
U
d
d
=
4
0
Ub
2

_
1
_
2
b
_
2
. (7)
REFERENCES 2
Thus, combining Eqs. (5), (6), and (7), we can write
w
i
(y) =
2US

2
b
3
C
L
_
b/2
b/2

( y)
_
1
_
2
b
_
2
d (8)
Introducing the trigonometric substitution of Eq. (3) and, correspondingly,
cos =
2
b
,
Eq.(8) can be written in the form
w
i
() =
US

2
b
2
C
L
_

0
cos d
cos cos
. (9)
The integral appearing here is a standard Glauert integral, which can be evaluated from the general
formula (see, e.g., [1])
_

0
cos
n
d
cos cos
=
sin n
sin
. (10)
This gives the value of the integral appearing in Eq. (9) as , so we have
w
i
=
U
AR
C
L
, (11)
where we have introduced the wing aspect ratio AR = b
2
/S.
Thus, the induced angle of attack is seen, for the elliptical span loading, to be given by
= sin
1
_
w
i
U
_

C
L
AR
. (12)
Thus, for the elliptical span loading, the induced angle of attack is seen to be:
1. Constant across the span;
2. Proportional to the wing lift coecient; and
3. Inversely proportional to the wing aspect ratio AR = b
2
/S.
Since, for the elliptical distribution of lift, the induced angle of attack is constant, independent of
spanwise position, the induced drag D
i
is simply equal to
D
i
= Lsin . (13)
Thus, the coecient of induced drag is given by
C
Di
= C
L
=
C
2
L
AR
. (14)
Although not demonstrated here, it can also be shown (see, e.g., [1]) that the elliptical span loading
produces the minimum induced drag for a given total lift and wing span.
References
[1] L. M. Milne-Thompson, Theoretical Aerodynamics, Dover, New York, 1958.
[2] Richard S. Shevell, Fundamentals of Flight, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall, New York, 1989.