文档介绍：JOURNAL OF AIRCRAFT
, No. 1, January –February2001
Low-Speed Natural-Laminar-Flow Airfoils:
Case Study in Inverse Airfoil Design
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AshokGopalarathnam andMichael S. Selig †
Universityof Illinois at Urbana –Champaign,Urbana, Illinois 61801
A systematicstudy of the trends inlow-speed natural-laminar- ow airfoils for general aviation applications
is presented. The airfoilshave been designedusing a multipoint inverse airfoildesign method, which allows for
specication of velocity and boundary-layer properties overdifferent portionsof the panelmethod with
acoupled boundary-layer scheme is usedto analyze the characteristics ofthe resultingairfoils. By systematically
adjustingthe specications, families of airfoils have been designedwith different lift,drag, and pitching-moment
characteristics. Parametricstudies are presented tostudy the tradeoffsinvolved in designing laminar- ow airfoils
forgeneral aviation. Although the results ofthe studyare specic tothe class ofairplanes considered, the design
philosophiesand the designapproach used in the studyare applicableto a wide rangeof airplanes. In addition, the
examplespresented inthe paperform an excellent case studyto demonstrate the power ofmodern inverse design
techniquesin controlling the performanceof an airfoil to a ne degree andin generating a custom database of
airfoi