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    Aerodynamics - What Is Vortex Lift

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    Vortex lift is a method used by highly swept wings like delta wings to generate lift at high angles of attack. It involves the formation of leading edge vortices parallel to the wing edges, which suck air down toward the wing surface. This lowers pressure on the top of the wing and increases lift in a nonlinear way. Vortex lift allowed aircraft like the Concorde to use high angles of attack during takeoff and landing. It is also used on aircraft components like strakes, chines, and canards to enhance lift and stability.

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    Aerodynamics - What Is Vortex Lift

    Uploaded by

    Sepide
    310 views6 pages
    Vortex lift is a method used by highly swept wings like delta wings to generate lift at high angles of attack. It involves the formation of leading edge vortices parallel to the wing edges, which suck air down toward the wing surface. This lowers pressure on the top of the wing and increases lift in a nonlinear way. Vortex lift allowed aircraft like the Concorde to use high angles of attack during takeoff and landing. It is also used on aircraft components like strakes, chines, and canards to enhance lift and stability.

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    A small explanation on vortex lift

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    Aerodynamics - What is Vortex Lift

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    Vortex lift is a method used by highly swept wings like delta wings to generate lift at high angles of attack. It involves the formation of leading edge vortices parallel to the wing edges, which suck air down toward the wing surface. This lowers pressure on the top of the wing and increases lift in a nonlinear way. Vortex lift allowed aircraft like the Concorde to use high angles of attack during takeoff and landing. It is also used on aircraft components like strakes, chines, and canards to enhance lift and stability.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    310 views6 pages

    Aerodynamics - What Is Vortex Lift

    Uploaded by

    Sepide
    Vortex lift is a method used by highly swept wings like delta wings to generate lift at high angles of attack. It involves the formation of leading edge vortices parallel to the wing edges, which suck air down toward the wing surface. This lowers pressure on the top of the wing and increases lift in a nonlinear way. Vortex lift allowed aircraft like the Concorde to use high angles of attack during takeoff and landing. It is also used on aircraft components like strakes, chines, and canards to enhance lift and stability.

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    Vortex lift is generated on highly swept wings like delta wings through leading edge vortices that form parallel to the wing edges and suck air down to produce low pressure on the upper surface, generating lift.

    Vortex lift is generated on delta wings through leading edge vortices that form 'vortex sheets' along the wing edges. Air is sucked into the vortex sheets and accelerated downward, producing low pressure on the upper surface and lift.

    A major advantage of vortex lift generation is that it is effective at high angles of attack, over which wings would normally stall.

    What is vortex lift?

    The vortex lift is the method by which highly swept wings (like delta wings) produce lift at high angles of attack.
    In the case of wings having sharp, highly swept leading edges like delta wings, the leading-edge separation vortex
    phenomenon occurs at subsonic speeds. However, the separation does not destroy the lift as in the case of low
    sweep wings instead, it forms two vortices which are (nearly) parallel to the wing edges.

    Vortices over a delta wing with a sweep angle of 70, Separation in three-dimensional steady flow, ONERA

    In the case of Concorde, the vortices look like this:


    Vortices over the Concorde wing, Separation in three-dimensional steady flow, ONERA A cross-section of the
    vortices looks like this:

    Flow above the Concorde Wing, Separation in three-dimensional steady flow, ONERA

    Unlike the (bound) vortex of the conventional wing, these are real in the sense that they represent an actual mass
    of air rotating at high speed compared to the air in front of the wing.

    The vortices form 'vortex sheets' along the wing. Air is sucked into the vortex sheets and accelerated downward.
    As the airspeed in the vortex is high, the pressure is low. This low pressure on the upper surface produces lift.

    From Low Aspect Ratio Wings at High Angles of Attack at adg.stanford.edu:

    ...the leading-edgevortices, increase the wing lift in a nonlinear manner. The vortex can be viewed as
    reducing the upper surface pressures by inducing higher velocities on the upper surface.

    Source: adg.stanford.edu
    Basically, the vortices increase the lift from the baseline (potential flow) values, with the extra force being equal to
    the loss of leading edge suction associated with the separated flow in high angle of attack highly swept wings. This
    analogy gives the same result as before.

    A Concept of the Vortex Lift of Sharp-edged Delta Wings based on a Leading-Edge Suction Analogy, Edward C.
    Polhamus, NASA Technical note D-3767

    A major advantage of vortex lift generation is that it is effective at high angles of attack, over which the wings
    would normally stall. Actually, that Concorde used this method of lift generation is the reason for the high AoA
    during landing and its droop-down nose.

    Source: http://soliton.ae.gatech.edu

    One thing to be noted is that vortex lift generation happens at high angles of attack or in case the wings are
    designed to generate separated flow (with sharp edges as in Concorde) in normal conditions. Otherwise, the lift
    generation is by conventional means.

    The same mechanism is responsible for lift generation in:


    Strakes

    By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans [Public domain], via Wikimedia
    Commons

    Chines

    Image from Effects of Vertical Tail and Inlet/Strake Geometry on Stability of a Diamond-Wing Fighter Configuration
    by Mitchell E. Fossum et al., accessed through http://enu.kz/
    Canards

    Source: forum.keypublishing.com
    Where else is vortex lift used?

    Vortex lift is helpful when the lift is needed at high angles of attack or sideslip. Besides on delta wings, it is used in:

    Strakes or leading edge extensions ahead of the wing


    Strakes or fillets ahead of the vertical tail surface
    highly swept canards or fins

    Picture of CFD simulations on the F-18, taken from this Aerospace web page.

    The gray ribbons show how the flow curls up past the leading edge of the strake and stays close to the upper
    surface of the wing.

    Flow visualization on a delta wing (picture source). This picture was taken in a water tunnel, and dyes were injected
    at the leading edge to make the streamlines visible.

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