Investigation on Aerodynamics Performance of Elliptic Airfoil at High Speed

The high speed experimental investigation on a 16% thickness elliptic airfoil was performed in two-dimensional testing section of FL-21 wind tunnel at China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center.The techniques of measuring the surface pressure and drag measurement with trail total pressure row tube were used.The experimental results validated the numerical calculation method and also shown that,the lift-curve slope of this airfoil is reduced in comparison to that of a conventional airfoil,the center of lift is in the vicinity of 15% of the chord.The pitching moment of this airfoil increases linearly with the angle of attack and the minimum drag angle of attack is not zero,which is different from conventional symmetrical airfoil.