calculating wing area - exclude fuse?

[andrewchapman]

Hey people,

Just a quick question on calculating wing area:

Do you exclude the area of the wing intersecting the fuselage, or just the areas where air flows over both the top and bottom surfaces?

Cheers,
AC.

[Dick Huang]

Originally posted by andrewchapman
Hey people,

Just a quick question on calculating wing area:

Do you exclude the area of the wing intersecting the fuselage, or just the areas where air flows over both the top and bottom surfaces?

Cheers,
AC.

The wing area is calculated using the entire wing span including the part that goes thru the fuse that does not see air flow. Or the wing area is calculated based on an one piece removable wing.
Dick Huang:D

[HELModels]

It is my opinion that when designing and calculating Reynold's numbers for various seperate components like wing, fuselage, rudder, stabilizer; The wing is the wing and the fuse is the fuse and unfortunately the 2 meet. For designing and calculating, only consider wing span due to wing.

Make transition from wing to fuse as smooth as possible with No gaps and nice gently radiused fairings. This eliminates some drag. Fuselages are only necessary to carry batteries and only contribute to stability by attaching stabilizer. They increase drag and interference.

Flying Wings eliminate fuselages/eliminate large percentage of drag.

[steve lewin]

BTW the correct answer might depend on exactly why you're asking. Various competition classes have their own way of defining wing area, some of them rather odd.

The most common convention is to include the area within the fuselage.

Steve

[andrewchapman]

> Various competition classes have their own
> way of defining wing area, some of them
> rather odd.

Nah, its just for my own wing loading calculations. I've got an aim of 10oz per square foot, and I know how much all my components will weigh, so I'm designing a wing area to match.

Thanks for the replies.

AC.

[Ollie]

The reason the wing area inside the fuselage is included is that the lift distribution from wing tip to wing tip does not suddenly go to zero at the wing to fuselage intersection. The lift distribution decreases across the fuselage some compared to the lift distribution beyond the fuselage but is no where near zero in any case. How much depends on the width of the fuselage, the smoothness of the intersection and, how much the fuselage disrupts the flow over the top and bottom of the wing.

[Aio_1]

Generally the entire span is taken into account for calculating wing area, aspect ratio etc.

Aidan

[HELModels]

I have the uncanny ability to think one thing and say another.

The fuselage has the effect of reducing aspect ratio of wing and also the stab through interference. Chord length and not span is needed to determine Reynolds number. If aspect ratio is effectively reduced by the fuselage, isnt span effectively reduced, e.g. a 16:1 ratio or whatever goes down/reduced? The amount that A.R. is reduced probably depends on width of fuselage, configuration - high wing, low wing, mid wing also T-tail, V-tail, etc.

I'm also not a trained aerodynamicist, but I play one on t.v.

[Sparky Paul]

Originally posted by ElectroStorch
...

I'm also not a trained aerodynamicist, but I play one on t.v.
.
Ah, but did you spend the night at a Day's Inn?
All the difference in the world..
The change in a.r. due to the fuselage would be small, unless you're doing a Burnelli.
Al the best aerodynamicists use all the span... :)

[HELModels]

Impressed, Ehhh?

All the best aerodynamicists save a bit of their A game for the one theyre building.

;)