Department of Mechanical Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2009/10 |
ME30032: Aerodynamics |
 Credits:
| 6 |
| Level:
| Honours |
| Period: | Semester 1 |
| Assessment:
| EX 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | ME30032 Re-assessment (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| Before taking this unit you must take ME20022 |
| Description: | Aims: To improve the students' understanding of fundamentals of inviscid and viscous flow, principles of lift and drag, turbulence and compressibility. Learning Outcomes: After taking this unit the student should be able to: * Estimate lift for an arbitrary aerofoil cross-sections. * Calculate the load distributions over an arbitrary three-dimensional wing. * Apply the boundary layer equations to laminar and turbulent flow. * Estimate the drag, and predict lift and drag at high Mach numbers. Skills: Problem solving and numeracy (taught and assessed). Content: Incompressible flow over aerofoils: irrotational flow over a circular cylinder, Kutta-Joukowski theorem, thin aerofoil theory, cambered and flapped aerofoil, vortex panel method, high-lift devices. Incompressible flow over finite wings: induced drag, lifting-line theory, general lift distribution, lifting-surface theory, delta wings. Fundamentals of viscous flow: viscosity and stress, fluid acceleration, conservation of mass and momentum. Boundary layers: boundary layer equations, zero pressure gradient, separation, similarity solutions, arbitrary pressure gradient, boundary layer control in laminar flow, other thin shear flows. Flow instabilities, transition and turbulence: stability theory, instability over a flat plate, factors affecting instability and transition, turbulent transport of momentum, turbulent boundary layer over a flat plate, turbulent drag reduction and separation control, turbulence measurement. Lift and drag at high Mach numbers: Mach number regimes, normal and oblique shock waves, expansion waves, shock-expansion theory for supersonic aerofoils, subsonic and transonic flow over aerofoils, linearised supersonic flow, wings and influence of sweepback. Topics for self study that could be examined. |