Prediction of tethered-aerostat response to atmospheric turbulence

Abstract

comparison of the theories for a wing of AR = 6 with 50% inboard flap span. The flapped section data are given in Ref. 13 and the clean section data are taken from Ref. 12. Again, the present improved method predicts results in good agreement with experiment. Prandtl's method is seen to produce lower lift in this case. Examination of the numerical results indicates that while Prandtl's theory produces slightly lower downwash over the flapped span, it gives much lower upwash over the outboard clean span which is due to the strong trailing vortices from the inboard flapped section. This is probably the aspect-ratio effect, because as the aspect ratio is increased to 10, Prandtl's theory predicted higher lift. Concluding Remarks An improved nonlinear lifting-line theory has been presented with applications. The new theory, which allows the use of nonlinear section data, predicts aerodynamic characteristics of wings of moderate to high aspect ratios with or without sweep in better agreement with experiment than Prandtl's theory. The theory can be used to convert the airfoil characteristics to wing characteristics. Acknowledgment