Applied Computational Aerodynamics A Modern Engineering Approach

Some sources of aerodynamic geometry and experimental data for use in code evaluation are listed here. They are invaluable for making sure that you are using a computational aerodynamics code correctly. Always check a code that is new to you against known results, which we already discussed in Chapter 2. Note that rigorous validation of codes requires very careful analysis and an understanding of possible experimental, as well as computational, error (which was also discussed in Chapter 10). Most of the NASA and NACA reports cited here are available from the NASA Technical Reports Server, http://ntrs.nasa.gov/; a mirror website for NACA reports is available from Cranfield University at http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/. Some of the reports listed here will also be provided at the book website: http://www.cambridge.org/aerodynamics. Most of the results are presented graphically, so a utility such as DataThief or Engauge is needed to digitize the data for comparison with calculations.

Books

Abbott, I.H. and von Doenhoff, A.E., Theory of Airfoil Sections, New York: Dover, 1959: This is a book every aerodynamicist should have. Look in the references for the original NACA airfoil reports. The aerodynamic descriptions contained in the reports are unsurpassed. However, beware of the actual data presented prior to 1939, which is when they discovered that they had to apply a different support interference correction to the measured results (see NACA Report 669 by Jacobs for details). Note that pressure distributions for airfoils are fairly rare. See also NACA Report 824, which is an earlier compendium similar to this book.