Quote:
|
Power requirements are cubed in relation to velocity.
|
Yes, but don't forget compressibility at 500mph=800km/h which P47P51Tempest could dive to. As for wing airfoil drag, there are extra 250HP is consumed by Compressibility.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter3.html
Graph and sketch hand-drawn by John Stack, 1933. The effect of compressibility on the power required for a hypothetical airplane.This sketch was subsequently sent to the October 1933 Committee Meeting of the NACA in Washington. From the John Stack papers at the NASA Langley Archives.
Quote:
More blades = more drag but those airplanes have more thrust than the blades add drag because of their weight.
You can also bet that all the engineers during WWII did their homework. I know Mtt and Focke Wulf both tested 4 bladed designs on their aircraft. It was found that what one design made up in efficiency, it lost in power loading and vice versa. As such Focke Wulf concluded that was no appreciable difference other than weight savings on the 3 bladed propeller.
The German propeller designer took the approach of widening the blade chord to increase power loading and using a better material. The allies added more blades and accepted the weight(drag) increase. Both are perfectly acceptable approaches to increasing performance with very little to choose from.
|
Yes, all the engineers during WWII did their homework. However, why allied engineers accepted the weight(drag) increased by the 4th blade, and why german engineers denied?
allied side:
German side:
Quote:
http://wp1113056.wp148.webpack.hoste...fluegel_en.htm
The measurements were repeated for different Reynold Numbers and different lift coefficients. For the lowest Reynold Number (4 millions) the point of transition was measured at 50% depth on the upper surface. It moved to the leading edge with increasing Reynold Number, arriving at 20% for Re=7,5 millions. Measurements with different laminar flow airfoils including the Mustang airfoil were later continued in the large high-speed wind tunnel of the DVL, Berlin up to Reynold Numbers of 20 millions. These measurements clearly revealed the fact that the laminar flow effect completely disappeared at real flight Reynold Numbers. This was an expected but sobering result.
|
Allied said laminar airfoil actually reduced drag in P51, but german believed it's an impossible goal when Reynold Numbers is high(real flight ).
Who made the mistakes?
This unclassified file<<where we stand>> at Page 45 says:
http://www.governmentattic.org/vonK/...VKarman_V2.pdf
Quote:
According to the German aerodynamicist Schlichting, German work on laminarflow airfoils did not start until about the end of 1938. By 1940, Schlichting considered that the fundamentals were known. Drag coefficients as low as 0.0027 were reached at a Reynolds Number of 5 x 10^6, but the German scientists were unable to retain the low drag at higher Reynolds Numbers. They were handicapped by lack of suitable low-turbulence wind tunnels. On one occasion, Prandtl reported: "Suitable wind tunnels for the conduct of airfoil investigations at sufficiently high Reynolds Number and at low turbulence are lacking in Germany. On the other hand, it is known that in the U. S. A. particular installations created for this purpose are working exceptionally vigorously in this field."
Tests were made on a Japanese laminar flow airfoil, on·three airfoils derived from one member of an obsolete NACA Series 27215 (which was described in a captured French secret report), and on a few airfoils designed by Schlichting. The Germans also 45 had some information on a Russian laminar flow airfoil obtained from a captured report.
The Germans never used laminar flow airfoils on aircraft. They were astonished and mystified by the performance of the Mustang and made many wind-tunnel and flight "tests. They gave the following tabulation of wing profile drag coeffiicients
(obtained by momentum method) for a number of airplanes at lift coefficient of 0.2:
He-177 0.0109
Me-109B 0.0101
Mustang 0.0072
Ju-288 0.0102
FW-190 0.0089
The German comment is: "The drag of this only foreign original airfoil tested up till now is far below the drag of all German wings tested in which it should be remembered that it was tested without any smoothing layer." Another writer says: "A comparison of flight measurements shows quite unmistakably that the Mustang is far superior aerodynamically to all other airplanes and that it maintains this superiority in spite of its considerably greater wing area."
Allied Developments.
The NACA began investigations of laminar flow airfoils in a low-turbulence wind tunnel in the spring of 1938, and the encouraging nature of the results obtained (without details) were described in the Wilbur Wright Lecture of the Royal Aeronautical Society on 25 May 1939, and in the NACA Annual Report for 1939. In June, 1939, an advance confidential report by Jacobs was released. A summary was published in March, 1942 in confidential form. The most recent summary was relaesed in March, 1945, and this summary has been kept up to date by supplementary sheets.
As indicated in the summary of German developments, the Allies are far ahead in low-turbulence wind tunnel equipment and in knowledge of laminar flow airfoils and their application to aircaft. Drag coefficients as low as 0.003 at a Reynolds Number of 20 x 10^6 have been obtained. A summary of the present state of knowledge is given in the NACA restricted report L5C05, "Summary of Airfoil Data," by Abbott, von Doenhoff, and Stivers,
March, 1945.
|
Probablly German wind tunnel failed in testing laminar flow airfoil in WWII. German tested none-laminar 3-blade vs 4-blade prop. and drew the conclusion of "not appreciable" for 4-blade, but if they test laminar 3-blade vs laminar 4-blade prop, they will finally find the advantage of 4-blade low drag propeller.
Hamilton Standard :NACA-16 laminar flow airfoil,4-blade prop. widely used in P47P51 etc.
UK de Havilland Propellers was established in 1935, as a division of the de Havilland Aircraft company when that company acquired a license from the Hamilton Standard company of America for the manufacture of variable pitch propellers. The division was incorporated as a separate company on 27 April 1947. SpitfireIX,XIV, Tempest also have laminar flow airfoil,4-blade prop.
As XF4U-1 diagram indicated, 3-blade NACA16(laminar) and 3-blade Clark-Y propeller are roughly the same efficiency(within 3%), after 1942 alomost all allied laminar prop had 4 blade, later Spitfire even had 5-blade prop.
There must be enough reason for allied engineers to prefer 4-blade. If allied found that was no appreciable difference other than weight savings on the 3 bladed propeller, they would drop 4-blade design just like Germans did. Those two diagrams from university textbook maybe demonstrate the difference between 3-blade laminar and 4-blade laminar propellers. We need exam it in future, Perhaps the diving difference mystery is just within propeller's efficiency diagrams.
If il2 FM couldn't model detailed compressibility of wing and propeller between 0.8-1.0 mach, it will never be perfect in simulating WWII late a/c.