Aircraft Drag Reduction: An Overview
Report, 2011

Drag reduction for aerial vehicles has a range of positive ramifications: reduced fuel consumption, larger operational range, greater endurance and higher achievable speeds. The aerodynamic drag breakdown of a transport aircraft at cruise shows that the skin friction drag and the lift-induced drag constitute the two main sources of drag, approximately one half and one third of the total drag. The paper summarizes the state of the art in aeronautical drag reduction for the `conventional’ drag components of viscous drag, drag due to lift and wave drag, and also will give an overview of the results obtained for the different mentioned topics and will try to evaluate the potential gains offered by the different technologies.

Aircraft

Drag reduction

Author

Mohsen Jahanmiri

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Transport

Energy

Subject Categories

Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

Roots

Basic sciences

Forskningsrapporter (Tillämpad mekanik): 2011:02

More information

Created

10/6/2017