Aerodynamics Assignment on Air-foils

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Ashish Choudhary
SC13B007, Btech 5th Semester, Aerospace Engineering

A comparative analysis was done on (kc135c-il) KC-135 BL200.76 AIRFOIL and two
more airfoils of NACA 4 and NACA 5 series which had almost similar geometrical features.
The analysis contains different property variations Cp vs x/c, Cl vs α, Cd vs α, Cl/Cd vs
α, Cm vs α, Clmax vs Re, Cdmin vs Re. The analysis was done by using XFLR5 software.

I. Introduction
Air foil (kc135c-il) KC-135 BL200.76 AIRFOIL is used in transonic regime. Similar to this airfoil
2 more airfoils were chosen, which had almost same geometrical parameters as shown below in table I:

Name Thickness at(%) Camber at(%)

KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil 10.59 40 1.66 20
NACA 1210 Airfoil 10.60 31 1.50 27
NACA 24010 Airfoil 10.60 31 2.07 20

Table 1. Geometric parameters of airfoils

Figure 1. Profiles of chosen airfoils

Since,the airfoils have almost same geometry, they are selected for the comparative study. For this report,
XFLR5 software is used, which uses XFOIL as its solver.

II. Analysis Conditions

analysis was done at:

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 • Reynolds Numbers : 5 × 104 , 1 × 105 , 5 × 105 , 1 × 106
• Angle of Attack : 10o to 20o
• Mach number : zero

• Ncrit = 9.

III. Results
A. Plots of Cp vs x/c

Figure 2. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

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 Figure 3. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

Figure 4. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• From above figures it is clearly seen that there is not much difference between 3 airfoils.
• Boundary layes thickness is a little higher in KC-135. Thus, drag acting on KC-135 is more compared
to other NACA airfoils.
• The displacement thickness on the lower surface is almost sticking to the geometry where as the

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 displacement thickness on the upper surface is going away from the geometry.
• Thus the pressure is higher at lower side and lower at upper side.
• Thus from the displacement thickness seen from the plot, we can clearly say that the lift is in upward
direction.

B. Plots of Cl vs α

Figure 5. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

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 Figure 6. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

Figure 7. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• It is noticed that figure for KC-135 airfoil is having irregularities, it clearly implies that solution didn’t
converged at some angle of attacks.

• As of trend Cl is increasing as α is increasing.

• Cl(max) is increasing as Reynolds no is increasing.

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 • The slope is constant upto a certain angle of attack after which the curve starts coming down. This is
because of the separation of flow.
• Stall angle is almost same around 8 to 15 degree for all 3 airfoils.
• Stall angle is increasing as Reynolds no is increasing (for all 3 airfoils)

• For NACA 1210 and NACA 24010 airfoils, the Cl does not pass through the origin. This is due to the
presence of camber.
• The value of slopes is around 2, for all the air-foils. So we can say that thin air-foil theory can be
applied here, which theoretically gives the slope of Cl vs graph to be 2.

C. Plots of Cd vs α

Figure 8. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

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 Figure 9. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

Figure 10. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• As a trend Cd vs α graph first decreases when angle is increased from -10 degree to 0 degree, then it
increases as α increases.

• The above behaviour can be explained using displacement thickness, in figure 2 We have seen that
displacement thickness increases with increasing α, due to this behaviour pressure drag increases and
so over all drag also increases.

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 • For the values of from 5 the frontal area is almost constant. so the drag remains constant. As, the
angle of attack increases further the area increases significantly, and the drag increases.
• Cd is lower at high renolds no.
• all the three airfoils are showing same trend of Cd.

D. Plots of Cl/Cd vs α

Figure 11. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

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 Figure 12. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

Figure 13. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• For KC-135 airfoil Cl/Cd curve didnot converges at many angles so curve is very different from NACA
airfoils.

• For high Reynolds no. Cl/Cd value is higher for positive angle of attacks and lower for negative angle
of attacks.
• we know that the lift on the air-foil increases linearly with angle of attack upto a certain value of and

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 drag first decreases, remains constant, and then increases with an increase in the value of .
So the ratio, lift to drag should first increase very rapidly with an increase in the value of as the
numerator increases and denominator decreases, then the ration should increase but at a slow rate
than at the starting. Further the ratio should very rapidly decrease as numerator increases at a
constant, but denominator increases very rapidly.

E. Plots of Cm vs α

Figure 14. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

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 Figure 15. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

Figure 16. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• For Cm vs α the plots are highly distorted, it is showing unpredictable behaviour. The values of cm is
zig-zag, it decreases and increases with increasing .

• Although some similarity can be seen in KC-135 airfoil and NACA airfoils.

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F. Plots of Clmax vs Reynolds no

Figure 17. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

Figure 18. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

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 Figure 19. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• All airfoils are showing same trend as Reynlds angle increases maximum Cl also increases.

G. Plots of Cdmin vs Reynolds no

Figure 20. For KC-135 BL200.76 Airfoil

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 Figure 21. For NACA 1210 Airfoil

Figure 22. For NACA 24010 Airfoil

• All airfoils are showing same trend as Reynlds angle increases minimum Cd also decreases.
• Reynolds Number is the ratio of inertial forces to the viscous forces, so higher Reynolds no. means
lesser viscous force and higher inertial force.
• Hence with increase in Reynolds no. Cl(max) increases and Cd(min) decreases.

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