CONTENT BEYOND SYLLABUSS

Drag Force and Drag Coefficient

1.Introduction
Drag is the enemy of flight and its cost. In chapter 2, major forces that are influencing
aircraft motions were briefly introduced. One group of those forces is aerodynamic forces
that split into two forces: Lift force or lift, and Drag force or drag. A pre-requisite to
aircraft performance analysis is the ability to calculate the aircraft drag at various flight
conditions. One of the jobs of a performance engineer is to determine drag force
produced by an aircraft at different altitudes, speeds and configurations. This is not an
easy task, since; this force is a function of several parameters including aircraft
configuration and components. As the drag is a function of aircraft speed, wing area, air
density, and its configuration. Each aircraft is designed with a unique configuration, thus,
aircraft performance analysis must take into account this configuration. The configuration
effect of aircraft drag is represented through the drag coefficient (CD), plus a reference
area that relates to the aircraft.
An aircraft is a complicated three-dimensional vehicle, but for simplicity in
calculation, we assume that the drag is a function a two-dimensional area and we call it
the reference area. This area could be any area including tail area, wing area and fuselage
cross sectional area (i.e., fuselage cross section), fuselage surface area, and even aircraft
top-view area. No matter what area is selected, the drag force must be the same. This
unique drag comes from the fact that the drag coefficient is a function of the reference
area. Therefore, if we select a small reference area, the drag coefficient shall be large, but
if we choose a large reference area, the drag coefficient shall be small. In an air vehicle
with a small wing area (e.g., high-speed missile), the fuselage cross-sectional area
(normal to the flow) is often considered as the reference area. However, in an aircraft
with a large wing, the top-view of wing; planform area (in fact gross wing area) is often
assumed to be the reference area.
The measurement of this area is easy; and it usually includes the most important
aerodynamic part of the aircraft. This simplified reference area is compensated with the
complicated drag coefficient, as we discussed in chapter 2.
1

1
V 2 SC D
2

The drag coefficient (CD) is a non-dimensional parameter, but it takes into

account every aerodynamic configuration aspect of the aircraft including large
components as wing, tail, fuselage engine, and landing gear; and small elements such as
rivets and antenna. This coefficient has two main parts (as will be explained in the next
section). The first part is referred to as lift-related drag coefficient or induced drag
coefficient (CDi) and the second part is called zero-lift drag coefficient (CDo). The
calculation of the first one is not very hard, but it takes a long time and energy to
determine the second part. In large transport aircraft, this task is done by a group of
engineers up to twenty engineers for a time period of up to six months. For this reason, a
large portion of this chapter is devoted to the calculation of CDo. This calculation is not
only time consuming, but also is very sensitive, since it influences every aspect of aircraft
performance.
One of the occasions in which the drag is considered a beneficial factor and is
effectively used is in parachute. A parachute is a device employed to considerably slow
the motion of an object/vehicle through an atmosphere (e.g., Earth or Mars) by increasing
drag. Parachutes are used with a variety of loads, including people, food, equipment, and
space capsules. Drogue chutes are used to sometimes provide horizontal deceleration of a
vehicle (e.g., space shuttle after a touchdown). The parachute is utilized by paratroopers
to extremely reduce the terminal speed for a safe landing.
One of the primary functions of aerodynamicists and aircraft designers is to
reduce this coefficient. Aircraft designers are very sensitive about this coefficient,
because any change in the external configuration of aircraft will change this coefficient
and finally aircraft direct operating cost. As a performance engineer, you must be able to
estimate the CDo of any aircraft just by looking at its three-view with an accuracy of about
30%. As you spend more time for calculation, this estimation will be more accurate, but
will never be exact, unless you use an aircraft model in a wind tunnel or flight test
measurements with real aircraft model. The method presented in this chapter is about
90% accurate for subsonic aircraft and 85% for supersonic aircraft.

2. Drag Classification
Drag force is the summation of all forces that resist against aircraft motion. The
calculation of the drag of a complete aircraft is a difficult and challenging task, even for
the simplest configurations. We will consider the separate sources of drag that contribute
to the total drag of an aircraft. The variation of drag force as a function of airspeed looks
like a graph of parabola. This indicates that the drag initially reduces with airspeed, and
then increases as the airspeed increases. It demonstrates that there are some parameters
that will decrease drag as the velocity increases; and there are some other parameters that
will increase drag as the velocity increases. This observation shows us a nice direction for
drag classification. Although the drag and the drag coefficient can be expressed in a
number of ways, for reasons of simplicity and clarity, the parabolic drag polar will be
2

used in all main analyses. Different references and textbooks use different terminology,
so it may confuse students and engineers. In this section, a list of definitions of various
types of drag is presented, and then a classification of all of these drag forces is
described.
Induced Drag: The drag that results from the generation of a trailing vortex system
downstream of a lifting surface with a finite aspect ratio. In another word, this type of
drag is induced by the lift force.
Parasite Drag: The total drag of an airplane minus the induced drag. Thus, it is the drag
not directly associated with the production of lift. The parasite drag is composed of drag
of various aerodynamic components; the definitions of which follow.
Skin Friction Drag: The drag on a body resulting from viscous shearing stresses (i.e.,
friction) over its contact surface (i.e., skin). The drag of a very streamlined shape such as
a thin, flat plate is frequently expressed in terms of a skin friction drag. This drag is a
function of Reynolds number. There are mainly two cases where the flow in the boundary
layer is entirely laminar or entirely turbulent over the plate. The Reynolds number is
based on the total length of the object in the direction of the velocity. In a usual
application, the boundary layer is normally laminar near the leading edge of the object
undergoing transition to a turbulent layer at some distance back along the surface.
A laminar boundary layer begins to develop at the leading edge and its thickness
grows in downstream. At some distance from the leading edge the laminar boundary
becomes unstable and is unable to suppress disturbances imposed on it by surface
roughness or fluctuations in the free stream. In a distance the boundary layer usually
undergoes a transition to a turbulent boundary layer. The layer suddenly increases in
thickness and is characterized by a mean velocity profile on which a random fluctuating
velocity component is superimposed. The distance, from the leading edge of the object to
the transition point can be calculated from the transition Reynolds number. Skin friction
factor is independent of surface roughness in laminar flow, but is a strong function of
surface roughness in turbulent flow due to boundary layer.
Form Drag (sometimes called Pressure Drag): The drag on a body resulting from the
integrated effect of the static pressure acting normal to its surface resolved in the drag
direction. Unlike the skin friction drag that results from viscous shearing forces tangential
to a bodys surface, form drag results from the distribution of pressure normal to the
bodys surface. In an extreme case of a flat plate normal to the flow, the drag is totally the
result of an imbalance in the pressure distribution. As with skin friction drag, form drag is
generally dependent on Reynolds number. Form drag is based on the projected frontal
area. As a body begins to move through the air, the vorticity in the boundary layer is shed
from the upper and lower surfaces to form two vortices of opposite rotation. A number of
symmetrical shapes having drag values [13] at low speed are illustrated in Table 3.1. The
drag coefficient values in this table are based on the frontal area. In this table, the flow is
coming from left to the right.

Interference Drag: The increment in drag resulting from bringing two bodies in
proximity to each other. For example, the total drag of a wing-fuselage combination will
usually be greater than the sum of the wing drag and fuselage drag independent of each
other.
Trim Drag: The increment in drag resulting from the (tail) aerodynamic forces required
to trim the aircraft about its center of gravity. Trim drag usually is a form of induced and
form drag on the horizontal tail.
Profile Drag: Usually taken to mean the total of the skin friction drag and form drag for
a two-dimensional airfoil section.
Cooling Drag: The drag resulting from the momentum lost by the air that passes through
the power plant installation for the purpose of cooling the engine.
Wave Drag: This drag; limited to supersonic flow; is a form of induced drag resulting
from non-canceling static pressure components to either side of a shock wave acting on
the surface of the body from which the wave is emanating.
Drag

Zero-lift Drag

Induced Drag

Miscellaneous
Drag

Wave
Drag

Skin friction
Drag

Nacelle

Wing

Fuselage

Interference
Drag

Trim
Drag

Cooling
Drag

Form
Drag

Tail

Landing
gear

Compressibility
Drag

Vortex
Drag

Wave Drag

Strut

CL
dependent

Volume
dependent

Figure 3.1. Drag classification

The material to follow will consider these various types of drag in detail and will present
methods of reasonably estimating their magnitudes. Figure 3.1 illustrates the drag
classification into two major groups.
For a conventional aircraft, the drag is divided into two main parts; lift related
drag, and non-lift related drag. The first part is called induced drag (Di), because this drag
is induced by lift (pressure). The second part is referred to as zero-lift drag (Do), since it
does not have any influence from lift, and is mainly originates from shear stress.

D Do Di
a. Induced drag: The induced drag is the drag directly associated with the
production of lift. This results from the dependency of the induced drag on the
angle of attack. As the angle of attack of the aircraft (i.e., lift coefficient) varies,
this type of drag is changed. The induced drag in itself consists of two parts. The
first part originates from vortices around wing, tail, fuselage, and other
components. The second part is because of air compressibility effect. In low
subsonic flight, it is negligible, but is high subsonic and transonic flight, must be
taken into account. In supersonic flight, wave drag (Dw) is added to the induced
drag. The reason is to account for the contribution of shock wave. The wing is the
major aircraft component contributor for the lift production. Thus, about 80% of
the induced drag comes from wing; about 10% comes from tail; and the rest
originate from other components. The induced drag is a function of airspeed, air
density, reference area, and the lift coefficient:
1
Di V 2 SC D i
2
Zero-lift drag: The zero-lift drag includes all types of drag that do not depend on
production of the lift. Every aerodynamic component of aircraft (i.e. the
components that are in direct contact with flow) generates zero-lift drag. Typical
components are wing, horizontal tail, vertical tail, fuselage, landing gear, antenna,
engine nacelle, and strut. The zero-lift drag is a function of airspeed, air density,
reference area, and the external shape of the components: