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The lift, drag and torque on an airfoil in foam modeled by the potential flow of a second-order fluid

By J. WANG AND D. D. JOSEPH

Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

(March, 2005)

Abstract

We compute the irrotational streaming flow of a second-order fluid past a Joukowski airfoil. The pressure and extra stress are evaluated using the irrotational flow theory, and the lift, drag and torque on the airfoil are obtained by integration of the normal stress over the surface of the airfoil. Our calculation can give rise to a lift force opposite to what would be predicted from the classical theory of aerodynamics. The result is in qualitative agreement with the experiments of the flow of a foam past an airfoil by Dollet, Aubouy and Graner 2004.