Airplane wing ? 5

[enginesrus]

With all the constant talk about lift and airflow over the top of a wing.
I have one simple question, on average what is the percentage of airplane weight supported by the top of the wing?

 

[RoarkS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKCK4lJLQHU[/URL]]

Doug McLean starting at 7:58 "Same effect as if a continuous material was under internal stresses." That's how our FEA software works... bunch of mass-spring-dampers. To me its the same as bending sheetmetal. That's why I said what I said.

 

[btrueblood]

RoarkS, that's a great link. Another great quote in there at about 13:57 is from Spalart:

"It's easy to explain how a rocket works, but explaining how a wing works takes a rocket scientist."

Spalart was an aerodynamicist who (along with a colleague, Allmaras) came up with one of the simpler methods to model fluid viscosity in high speed (turbulent) flows. You don't come across his name unless you have spent some time doing CFD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalart–Allmaras_turbulence_model