Explaining Lift and Drag Using Newton's Laws

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective was to explain what causes lift and drag on an airplane wing. I have designed and built a low speed wind tunnel to show that a simple mathematical model based on Newton's 2nd and 3rd Laws of Motion gives reasonable predictions of lift and drag forces for small angles of attack and wind speeds. Methods/Materials I built my wind tunnel in our garage using materials found around the house, plus a few inexpensive items purchased from the hardware store. I measured the angle of attack using a plastic protractor. The measurements of the lift forces were made with a common kitchen scale. Wind velocity was measured with a homemade anemometer. Results I demonstrated that lift and drag on an airplane wing do, in fact, follow Newton's Laws for small angles of attack. I showed that lift increases as the sine of the angle between the wind direction and the wing cord, and that drag increased as one minus the cosine. I also showed that both lift and drag increase as the velocity of the wind squared. Conclusions/Discussion My project taught me many math and science basics. First, I learned how to calculate the mass of a certain volume of air. I learned that air moves smoothly over the wing contour for small angles of attack. I learned that force, velocity, and acceleration are vector quantities, i.e., they have both magnitude and direction. I learned how to calculate the horizontal and vertical components of these vectors with simple trigonometry. Lastly, I learned how to apply Newton's Laws to these components.

Competition history

• CSEF 2003 Aerodynamics/ Hydrodynamics · Entry J0137

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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