Page 16 - Aerodynamics for Engineering Students

Preface

This volume is intended for students of engineering on courses or programmes of
study to graduate level.
The sequence of subject development in this edition commences with definitions
and concepts and goes on to cover incompressible flow, low speed aerofoil and wing
theory, compressible flow, high speed wing theory, viscous flow, boundary layers,
transition and turbulence, wing design, propellers and propulsion.
Accordingly the work deals first with the units, dimensions and properties of the
physical quantities used in aerodynamics then introduces common aeronautical
definitions before explaining the aerodynamic forces involved and the basics of
aerofoil characteristics. The fundamental fluid dynamics required for the develop-
ment of aerodynamics and the analysis of flows within and around solid boundaries
for air at subsonic speeds is explored in depth in the next two chapters, which
continue with those immediately following to use these and other methods to develop
aerofoil and wing theories for the estimation of aerodynamic characteristics in these
regimes. Attention is then turned to the aerodynamics of high speed air flows.
The laws governing the behaviour of the physical properties of air are applied to
the transonic and supersonic regimes and the aerodynamics of the abrupt changes
in the flow characteristics at these speeds are explained. The exploitation of these and
other theories is then used to explain the significant effects on wings in transonic and
supersonic flight respectively, and to develop appropriate aerodynamic characteris-
tics. Viscosity is a key physical quantity of air and its significance in aerodynamic
situations is next considered in depth. The useful concept of the boundary layer and
the development of properties of various flows when adjacent to solid boundaries,
build to a body of reliable methods for estimating the fluid forces due to viscosity and
notably, in aerodynamics, of skin friction and profile drag. Finally the two chapters
on wing design and flow control, and propellers and propulsion respectively, bring
together disparate aspects of the previous chapters as appropriate, to some practical
and individual applications of aerodynamics.
It is recognized that aerodynamic design makes extensive use of computational
aids. This is reflected in part in this volume by the introduction, where appropriate,
of descriptions and discussions of relevant computational techniques. However,
no comprehensive cover of computational methods is intended, and experience
in computational techniques is not required for a complete understanding of the
aerodynamics in this book.
Equally, although experimental data have been quoted no attempt has been made
to describe techniques or apparatus, as we feel that experimental aerodynamics
demands its own considered and separate treatment.