XFLR 5 - WING DESIGNING AND ANALYSIS

WING DESIGNING AND ANALYSIS

Hi friends i hope you all liked the analysis part and also tried out various other airfoil designs available in the airfoil database site. This analysis helps us in understanding the basic concepts and also the theory behind the lift generation and the selection of these kind of airfoils.

Coming to the topic, today we'l learn how to design the wing by using various airfoils. As we all already know that "An airfoil is the perpendicular cross section of wing, which has a complex shape of various curves along its design".

Now let's get started with the designing part.

DESIGNING

1. Go to ------> ( http://aerospace.illinois.edu/m-selig/ads/coord_database.html) and go through the various types of airfoils some of which you might haven't heard of.

2. Select the type of airfoil you require to experiment upon and download the ".dat file".

3. Open XFLR5 ---------> Choose the FILE option in the toolbar and open "Direct Foil Design" or you may also simply type "CLT + 1".

4. Choose the OPEN option on the toolbar and open the .dat file downloaded.

5. Open "Wing and Plane Design" from file on toolbar or type "CLT + 6".

You can see a 3D space being created for the designing part.

6. Choose "Design a new wing" from the toolbar or click "F3".

A new dialog bow will pop up showing a flat wing which is symmetric along X-axis. On the right hand side you can select all the options like panels, Mass, foil names.

7. We have got two sections in our wing in the above table we have two columns with various parameters two modify our wing.

8. You can edit the values of span, chord length, according to your eye catching design of the wing.

9. To generate the airfoil click over the empty space below the foil and we get the airfoil which you have worked upon previously or open in the starting.

You can zoom in to find that you have got a wing with the specified airfoil curves on the sides.

10. Click on "Insert after section 2" and increase the length by your own values and then choose dihidral and give in a value to make the winglets. The angle of dihidral can be of your choice.

11. Next we need to setup a POLAR to run the final analysis over wing designed.

12. Click on POLAR in toolbar and choose "Define an Analysis" and we get a new dialog box in which we have three options

a) Fixed Speed

b) Fixed lift

c) Fixed area

13. We are selecting FIXED LIFT over the given wing, take your own maa of the plane and choose VLM and deselect viscous. Then clcik OK, in the RHS select the sequence and give your angle of attack values and click on ANALYZE.

HENCE YOU CAN SEE A BRILLIANT FIGURE OF FORCES WHICH ACT OVER A WING WHEN IN FLIGHT.

YOU CAN ALSO SELECT PANEL FORCES AND GET A DIFFERENT SET OF VIEW OF FORCE LINES

Thank you for patience and please practice this over various airfoils available out there.

XFLR 5 - BASICS

XFLR5 - BASICS

Hello, fellow friends, today we are back to learn a new software with new ways of implementing your ideas and knowledge about airfoils and how you can try and make a better airfoil by changing a few digits.

XFLR5 is an analysis tool for airfoils, wings and planes operating at low Reynolds Numbers. It includes:

1. XFoil's Direct and Inverse analysis capabilities.
2. Wing design and analysis capabilities based on the Lifiting Line Theory, on the Vortex Lattice Method, and on a 3D Panel Method.

Where to download xflr5?........ not a tough job you wont require a "utorrent" for it.

> go to this link ------->  (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xflr5/files/latest/download?source=files)

> google has got it all by just typing its name...........

After installing it there is one thing that I would like to share with you guys, we all have got theoretical knowledge in our minds knowing about the basics of, what an airfoil is, what are the various characteristics that are factors of its selection for a particular plane.

Well XFLR5 has got it all now we can perorm our own analysis and design, modify and craft our own aircrafts.

Airfoils are very difficult to be built at a very short deadline and to analyse them is another mammoth task ahead us. So thanks to the ""UIUC Applied Aerodynamics Group" for giving out free outlines of several airfoils from around the globe.

BASICS 

1. Go to ------> ( http://aerospace.illinois.edu/m-selig/ads/coord_database.html) and go through the various types of airfoils some of which you might haven't heard of.

2. Select the type of airfoil you require to experiment upon and download the ".dat file".

3. Open XFLR5 ---------> Choose the FILE option in the toolbar and open "Direct Foil Design" or you may also simply type "CLT + 1".

4. Choose the OPEN option on the toolbar and open the .dat file downloaded.

5. Choose the FILE option in the toolbar and open "XFoil Direct Analysis" or you can type "CLT + 5".

The software will display the airfoil design and also the various parameters of the airfoil like thickness, chord length and mean camber etc.

6. Choose ANALYSIS from the toolbar and open "Batch Analysis" or type "Shift + F6".

The dialog box will open containing various parameters which are pre-defined for the airfoil, you may modify after you get the basic idea of analysis.

7. Select "RANGE" in Batch Variable.

8. Select "ALPHA" (angle of attack) in Analysis Range.

9. Or you can also select "Cl" (coefficient of lift) in Analysis Range.

10. Click on ANALYZE.

On the background you can see the graphs been plotted as per the values entered. After the completion close the dialog box and then watch the watch the graphs been plotted. From these 5 graphs you can also choose the analysis of you favorite parameter as well.

11. Double click over any graph, for example - alpha VS Cl graph and choose the XY axis and there you go.

NOTE - THE GRAPHS WHICH YOU SEE ARE OF MAXIMIZED SIZE YOU CAN ZOOM IN TO SEE THE ACTUAL SHAPE OF THE GRAPH. 

Thank you for patience and please practice this over various airfoils available out there.