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In physics and engineering, a free body diagram (FBD; also called a force diagram) [1] is a graphical illustration used to visualize the applied forces, moments, and resulting reactions on a free body in a given condition. It depicts a body or connected bodies with all the applied forces and moments, and reactions, which act on the body(ies).
An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is a streamlined body that is capable of generating significantly more lift than drag. [1] Wings, sails and propeller blades are examples of airfoils. Foils of similar function designed with water as the working fluid are called hydrofoils.
A foil is a solid object with a shape such that when placed in a moving fluid at a suitable angle of attack the lift (force generated perpendicular to the fluid flow) is substantially larger than the drag (force generated parallel to the fluid flow).
In addition to these two forces, the body may experience an aerodynamic moment. The force created by propellers and jet engines is called thrust, and is also an aerodynamic force (since it acts on the surrounding air). The aerodynamic force on a powered airplane is commonly represented by three vectors: thrust, lift and drag.
For symmetrical airfoils =, so the aerodynamic center is at 25% of chord measured from the leading edge. But for cambered airfoils the aerodynamic center can be slightly less than 25% of the chord from the leading edge, which depends on the slope of the moment coefficient, . These results obtained are calculated using the thin airfoil theory so ...
A lifting body is a foil or a complete foil-bearing body such as a fixed-wing aircraft. C L is a function of the angle of the body to the flow, its Reynolds number and its Mach number. The section lift coefficient c l refers to the dynamic lift characteristics of a two-dimensional foil section, with the reference area replaced by the foil chord ...
Angle of attack is the angle between the body's reference line and the oncoming flow. This article focuses on the most common application, the angle of attack of a wing or airfoil moving through air. In aerodynamics , angle of attack specifies the angle between the chord line of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft and the vector representing the ...
Pitching moment coefficient is fundamental to the definition of aerodynamic center of an airfoil. The aerodynamic center is defined to be the point on the chord line of the airfoil at which the pitching moment coefficient does not vary with angle of attack, [ 1 ] : Section 5.10 or at least does not vary significantly over the operating range of ...