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Old 11-13-2005, 04:23 PM
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BMatthews
 
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Default RE: wing angle

Ah, I see where you're going now.

What you're describing is a tandem wing. But tandem wings must pay heed to the same rules of stability as any other conventional or canard planform. Those rules state that there's a Neutral Point where pitch stability will be zero. But to achieve a level of hands off positive stability the CG must be slightly ahead of that point. For your identical tandem wing the NP will likely be at the point equidistant between the two 25% chord points.(or not, I haven't run the numbers through the NP calculator to find out one way or the other)

When you do this the design wants to dive so we set an angular other aerodynamic difference into the two surfaces with the forward surface being set to a slight positive angle or higher lift configuration WRT the rear surface. Such a setup can be done with different airfoils or with angular difference if the airfoils are identical. This sets up a nose up pitching moment that is used to counter the nose down tendency of the CG being ahead of the NP. The fact that the nose up pitching moment is speed sensitive means that the design will trim to a stable speed. The final speed being set by the point at which the lift difference moment matches the nose down moment.

In your scenario the wings will provide this difference by angling one to the other and that forces the leading wing to a slightly higher lift coefficient than the rear wing. It also means the rear wing is not working as hard as the front wing.

It's actually inaccurate to describe this balance as a "Center of Lift" as there truly is no stable center of lift. There is a point for any given airspeed where the lifts will resolve to but that point is variable depending on airspeed. It is far easier and more conventional to show this force as a speed dependent rotational torque about the NP of the craft. So for steady flight what you have is a set of balanced twisting pitch forces that operates around the NP of the craft. The effect of gravity on the CG being ahead of the NP countered by the nose up pitching action of the differing lift coefficients of the two surfaces.

Now with both these surfaces sharing a common airfoil it also stands to reason that the forward surface will stall first since it will always be flying at a degree or two more positive angle of attack than the rear wing.

That help?