In
fluid dynamics
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) a ...
, the drag coefficient (commonly denoted as:
,
or
) is a
dimensionless quantity that is used to quantify the
drag or resistance of an object in a fluid environment, such as air or water. It is used in the
drag equation in which a lower drag coefficient indicates the object will have less
aerodynamic or
hydrodynamic
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) ...
drag. The drag coefficient is always associated with a particular surface area.
The drag coefficient of any object comprises the effects of the two basic contributors to
fluid dynamic
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) and ...
drag:
skin friction and
form drag. The drag coefficient of a lifting
airfoil or
hydrofoil also includes the effects of
lift-induced drag
In aerodynamics, lift-induced drag, induced drag, vortex drag, or sometimes drag due to lift, is an aerodynamic drag force that occurs whenever a moving object redirects the airflow coming at it. This drag force occurs in airplanes due to wings o ...
. The drag coefficient of a complete structure such as an aircraft also includes the effects of interference drag.
Definition
The drag coefficient
is defined as
where:
*
is the
drag force, which is by definition the force component in the direction of the
flow velocity;
*
is the
mass density
Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematicall ...
of the fluid;
*
is the
flow speed of the object relative to the fluid;
*
is the reference
area
Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an op ...
The reference area depends on what type of drag coefficient is being measured. For automobiles and many other objects, the reference area is the projected frontal area of the vehicle. This may not necessarily be the cross-sectional area of the vehicle, depending on where the cross-section is taken. For example, for a sphere
(note this is not the surface area =
).
For
airfoils, the reference area is the nominal wing area. Since this tends to be large compared to the frontal area, the resulting drag coefficients tend to be low, much lower than for a car with the same drag, frontal area, and speed.
Airship
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.
In early ...
s and some
bodies of revolution use the volumetric drag coefficient, in which the reference area is the
square of the
cube root of the airship volume (volume to the two-thirds power). Submerged streamlined bodies use the wetted surface area.
Two objects having the same reference area moving at the same speed through a fluid will experience a drag force proportional to their respective drag coefficients. Coefficients for unstreamlined objects can be 1 or more, for streamlined objects much less.
Background
The drag equation
:
is essentially a statement that the
drag force
In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a ...
on any object is proportional to the density of the fluid and proportional to the square of the relative
flow speed between the object and the fluid. The factor of
comes from the
dynamic pressure of the fluid, which is equal to the kinetic energy density.
The value of
is not a constant but varies as a function of flow speed, flow direction, object position, object size, fluid density and fluid
viscosity
The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water.
Viscosity quantifies the int ...
. Speed,
kinematic viscosity and a characteristic
length scale
In physics, length scale is a particular length or distance determined with the precision of at most a few orders of magnitude. The concept of length scale is particularly important because physical phenomena of different length scales cannot ...
of the object are incorporated into a dimensionless quantity called the
Reynolds number .
is thus a function of
. In a compressible flow, the speed of sound is relevant, and
is also a function of
Mach number .
For certain body shapes, the drag coefficient
only depends on the Reynolds number
, Mach number
and the direction of the flow. For low Mach number
, the drag coefficient is independent of Mach number. Also, the variation with Reynolds number
within a practical range of interest is usually small, while for cars at highway speed and aircraft at cruising speed, the incoming flow direction is also more-or-less the same. Therefore, the drag coefficient
can often be treated as a constant.
For a streamlined body to achieve a low drag coefficient, the
boundary layer around the body must remain attached to the surface of the body for as long as possible, causing the
wake to be narrow. A high ''form drag'' results in a broad wake. The boundary layer will transition from laminar to turbulent if Reynolds number of the flow around the body is sufficiently great. Larger velocities, larger objects, and lower
viscosities contribute to larger Reynolds numbers.
[Clancy, L. J.: ''Aerodynamics''. Section 4.17]
For other objects, such as small particles, one can no longer consider that the drag coefficient
is constant, but certainly is a function of Reynolds number.
At a low Reynolds number, the flow around the object does not transition to turbulent but remains laminar, even up to the point at which it separates from the surface of the object. At very low Reynolds numbers, without flow separation, the drag force
is proportional to
instead of
; for a sphere this is known as
Stokes' law. The Reynolds number will be low for small objects, low velocities, and high viscosity fluids.
A
equal to 1 would be obtained in a case where all of the fluid approaching the object is brought to rest, building up
stagnation pressure over the whole front surface. The top figure shows a flat plate with the fluid coming from the right and stopping at the plate. The graph to the left of it shows equal pressure across the surface. In a real flat plate, the fluid must turn around the sides, and full stagnation pressure is found only at the center, dropping off toward the edges as in the lower figure and graph. Only considering the front side, the
of a real flat plate would be less than 1; except that there will be suction on the backside: a negative pressure (relative to ambient). The overall
of a real square flat plate perpendicular to the flow is often given as 1.17. Flow patterns and therefore
for some shapes can change with the Reynolds number and the roughness of the surfaces.
Drag coefficient examples
General
In general,
is not an absolute constant for a given body shape. It varies with the speed of airflow (or more generally with
Reynolds number ). A smooth sphere, for example, has a
that varies from high values for
laminar flow to 0.47 for
turbulent flow. Although the drag coefficient decreases with increasing
, the drag force increases.
Aircraft
As noted above, aircraft use their wing area as the reference area when computing
, while automobiles (and many other objects) use projected frontal area; thus, coefficients are not directly comparable between these classes of vehicles. In the aerospace industry, the drag coefficient is sometimes expressed in drag counts where 1
drag count = 0.0001 of a
.
[Basha, W. A. and Ghaly, W. S., "Drag Prediction in Transitional Flow over Airfoils," Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 44, 2007, p. 824–32.]
Automobile
Blunt and streamlined body flows
Concept
The force between a fluid and a body, when there is relative motion, can only be transmitted by normal pressure and tangential friction stresses. So, for the whole body, the drag part of the force, which is in-line with the approaching fluid motion, is composed of frictional drag (viscous drag) and pressure drag (form drag). The total drag and component drag forces can be related as follows:
where:
*''A'' is the planform area of the body,
*''S'' is the wet surface of the body,
*
is the
pressure
Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country a ...
drag coefficient,
*
is the
friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:
*Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of ...
drag coefficient,
*
is the unit vector in the direction of the shear stress acting on the body surface d''S'',
*
is the unit vector in the direction perpendicular to the body surface d''S'', pointing from the fluid to the solid,
*
magnitude of the
shear stress
Shear stress, often denoted by ( Greek: tau), is the component of stress coplanar with a material cross section. It arises from the shear force, the component of force vector parallel to the material cross section. '' Normal stress'', on ...
acting on the body surface d''S'',
*
is the pressure far away from the body (note that this constant does not affect the final result),
*
is pressure at surface d''S'',
*
is the unit vector in direction of free stream flow
Therefore, when the drag is dominated by a frictional component, the body is called a streamlined body; whereas in the case of dominant pressure drag, the body is called a blunt or bluff body. Thus, the shape of the body and the angle of attack determine the type of drag. For example, an airfoil is considered as a body with a small angle of attack by the fluid flowing across it. This means that it has attached
boundary layers, which produce much less pressure drag.
The
wake produced is very small and drag is dominated by the friction component. Therefore, such a body (here an airfoil) is described as streamlined, whereas for bodies with fluid flow at high angles of attack, boundary layer separation takes place. This mainly occurs due to adverse
pressure gradients at the top and rear parts of an
airfoil.
Due to this, wake formation takes place, which consequently leads to eddy formation and pressure loss due to pressure drag. In such situations, the airfoil is
stalled
''Stalled'' is a 2013 British zombie comedy film directed by Christian James. It stars Dan Palmer, who also wrote the screenplay, as a man confined to a bathroom stall after zombies attack. Produced by Richard Kerrigan and Daniel Pickering, the f ...
and has higher pressure drag than friction drag. In this case, the body is described as a blunt body.
A streamlined body looks like a fish (
Tuna
A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...
),
Oropesa, etc. or an airfoil with small angle of attack, whereas a blunt body looks like a brick, a cylinder or an airfoil with high angle of attack. For a given frontal area and velocity, a streamlined body will have lower resistance than a blunt body. Cylinders and spheres are taken as blunt bodies because the drag is dominated by the pressure component in the wake region at high
Reynolds number.
To reduce this drag, either the flow separation could be reduced or the surface area in contact with the fluid could be reduced (to reduce friction drag). This reduction is necessary in devices like cars, bicycle, etc. to avoid vibration and noise production.
Practical example
The
aerodynamic design of cars has evolved from the 1920s to the end of the 20th century. This change in design from a blunt body to a more streamlined body reduced the drag coefficient from about 0.95 to 0.30.
See also
*
Automotive aerodynamics
*
Automobile drag coefficient
*
Ballistic coefficient
*
Drag crisis
*
Zero-lift drag coefficient
Notes
References
*
L. J. Clancy (1975): ''Aerodynamics''. Pitman Publishing Limited, London, {{ISBN, 0-273-01120-0
* Abbott, Ira H., and Von Doenhoff, Albert E. (1959): ''Theory of Wing Sections''. Dover Publications Inc., New York, Standard Book Number 486-60586-8
* Hoerner, Dr. Sighard F., Fluid-Dynamic Drag, Hoerner Fluid Dynamics, Bricktown New Jersey, 1965.
* Bluff Body
http://user.engineering.uiowa.edu/~me_160/lecture_notes/Bluff%20Body2.pdf* Drag of Blunt Bodies and Streamlined Bodies: http://www.princeton.edu/~asmits/Bicycle_web/blunt.html
* Hucho, W.H., Janssen, L.J., Emmelmann, H.J. 6(1975): ''The optimization of body details-A method for reducing the aerodynamics drag''. SAE 760185.
Drag (physics)
Aerospace engineering
Dimensionless numbers of fluid mechanics