- #1
lordvon
- 31
- 3
What is the most elegant way of predicting drag on an airfoil in inviscid and incompressible flow? Or is this still an open problem?
It seems like the consensus for airfoils in incompressible and inviscid flow is that they cannot produce drag; or at least, we are not able to predict it elegantly. I think some people even believe that you simply cannot have drag in inviscid flow. Thin Airfoil Theory and Vortex Panel Methods predict zero drag. Wake momentum thickness approach (e.g. XFOIL) estimates drag by using (I think) control volumes and the airfoil wake flow field, but it does not seem like an elegant approach, and is much more complicated than computing lift.
I devised a physics model that predicts drag in an elegant way, as easy as lift, and matches almost exactly with NACA airfoil experimental data (before stall, of course). I am having a hard time believing no one else thought of this, so I am suspicious that something is wrong with my method or I missed it in literature.
It seems like the consensus for airfoils in incompressible and inviscid flow is that they cannot produce drag; or at least, we are not able to predict it elegantly. I think some people even believe that you simply cannot have drag in inviscid flow. Thin Airfoil Theory and Vortex Panel Methods predict zero drag. Wake momentum thickness approach (e.g. XFOIL) estimates drag by using (I think) control volumes and the airfoil wake flow field, but it does not seem like an elegant approach, and is much more complicated than computing lift.
I devised a physics model that predicts drag in an elegant way, as easy as lift, and matches almost exactly with NACA airfoil experimental data (before stall, of course). I am having a hard time believing no one else thought of this, so I am suspicious that something is wrong with my method or I missed it in literature.