OVERVIEW

"The term aerodynamics is generally used for problems arising from flight and other topics involving the flow of air"

Ludwig Prandtl, 1949

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide students with the basic knowledge on the aerodynamics of bodies moving at subsonic speed in a fluid medium, and on both empirical/theoretical and computational methods to estimate forces and moments on wing profiles and finite-span wings.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course the student will have acquired a solid knowledge of the effects of fluid forces onto solid bodies in motion, for both airfoils (2D) and wings (3D), and will be capable of developing (i) simple models to extract salient features of the fluid/solid interaction, as well as (ii) more complex computational aerodynamics calculations. 

TEACHING METHODS

The course will consist mainly of lectures and applications of the concepts learned in class to the solution of practical aerodynamics problems. The second part of the course will consist mostly in practical experience in the computer room with open-source and commercial CFD codes.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

• Introduction to Aerodynamics

-     Vorticity Dynamics

Vorticity and circulation; The vorticity equation; Generation of vorticity in incompressible flows

•  Ideal Fluids and Irrotational Flows

Plane potential flows, Conformal mapping and Joukowsky transformation, Potential flow around a cylinder; Lifting airfoils, Joukowsky airfoils; Potential flow around a two-dimensional body of arbitrary shape;Three-dimensional potential flows; Induced resistance and added mass force

•  Flow over Airfoils

Low speed flow over airfoils: the vortex sheet; The Kutta condition; Kelvin’s circulation theorem and the starting vortex; Symmetric airfoils; Cambered airfoils

•  Flow over Finite Wings

The vortex filament, Biot-Savart law and Helmholtz theorems; Prandtl’s classical lifting line theory

•  Boundary Layers

Falkner-Skan similarity solution; Hiemenz flow; Boundary layer over an infinite swept wing (FS-Cooke); Preliminary concepts on transition-to-turbulence of the boundary layer.

• Computational aerodynamics

Practical experience with CFD codes.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

• J.D. Anderson Jr., “Fundamentals of Aerodynamics”, McGraw-Hill 2007

-     T. von Karman, “Aerodynamics”, McGraw-Hill 1963

• R.H. Barnard & D.R. Philpott, “Aircraft Flight”, Prentice Hall 1995

•  J.S. Denker, “See how it flies”, http://www.av8n.com/how/

            (italian version: http://utenti.quipo.it/volare/how.htm#contents)

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

ALESSANDRO BOTTARO (President)

JOEL ENRIQUE GUERRERO RIVAS

JAN OSCAR PRALITS

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://corsi.unige.it/9270/p/studenti-orario

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam will consist of a written test plus an oral examination. Students with SLD or any other regularly certified special educational needs are advised to contact the instructor at the beginning of the course to agree on teaching and examination methods that, in compliance with the course objectives, take into account individual learning requirements.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

At the end of the semester the students must take one written exams, for the instructor to monitor their level of comprehension of the topics covered. Furthermore, they will be asked to solve numerically some 2D aerodynamics problems by the use of the codes Xfoil, XFLR5 and ANSYS Fluent, and return a written report with a critical analysis of the results obtained.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Pre-requisites: n introductory course in fluid mechanics.