Ground Effect
Ground Effect
Ground Effect
aerodynamics
Ever since the beginning of manned flight pilots have experienced
something strange when landing an aircraft. Just before touchdown it
suddenly feels like the aircraft just does not want to go lower. It just wants
to go on and on due to the air that is trapped between the wing and the
runway, forming an air cushion. The air cushion is best felt in low wing
aircraft with large wing areas. This phenomenon is called (aerodynamic)
ground effect. The Wright brothers probably have not even flown out of
ground effect in their early flights, they benefitted from ground effect
without even knowing it existed.
Around 1920 this effect was first described and some (theoretic) research was
carried out in this field (e.g. ref.840). From that time on pilots knew ground effect
and sometimes even used it on purpose. The seaplane Dornier DO-X could only
cross the Atlantic when it was flying with its hull just above the wavecrests. In the
second World War pilots knew that when they lost an engine or fuel on the way
back from the enemy that they could reach home by flying just a few metres
above the sea, thus needing less power and saving fuel.
These graphs illustrate lift decrease due to ground effect, they were made using
the Airfoil Calculator
L/D ratio
The combined result of the two phenomena described above is an overall
increase of the ratio between the lift and the drag (L/D). The lift increases when
the ground is approached and because of the increasing lift the induced drag
may not even decrease in absolute numbers, but even a slight increase still
leads to an increased L/D ratio.
The L/D ration is commonly used to express the efficiency of a vehicle. When a
vehicle is in stationary motion its weight is equal to its lift and its propulsive thrust
is equal to its drag, therefore the L/D ratio is an expression for the amount of
weight that can be carried with a certain amount of thrust. The higher this ratio,
the higher its efficiency and the lower its fuel consumption (for a given weight).
As the L/D of a wing increases with decreasing ground clearance the craft
becomes more efficient in ground effect.
The maximum L/D of a transonic airliner in high-altitude cruise flight
approaches 20 and small subsonic turboprop commuter aircraft may be around
15. Already in the early sixties Lippisch showed that in ground effect higher
values could be reached, his X-112 achieved an L/D value as high as 23 in
ground effect flight.
Longitudinal stability
Ever since the very first experimental WIG boats have been built in the
nineteen-thirties, longitudinal stability has been recognised as a very critical
design factor. When not designed properly WIG boats show a potentially
dangerous pitch up tendency when leaving (strong) ground effect. Powerboats
sometimes show the same tendency, when they meet a wave or a wind gust
they may suddenly flip backwards.
Example of a special wing section for ground effect, its has a pronounced S-
shape at the bottom only, this graph was generated with the Airfoil Calculator
Although the design of the upper side is less important than the lower side,
here also some general rules apply. The nose radius of the profile must not be
too small because that may lead to very early separation in strong ground effect.
Furthermore an S-shaped camberline is favourable for stability, so with a given
(non S-shaped) bottom this leads to a very pronounced S-shaped upper side.