Displacement thickness distributions in transonic flows about 3-D wings
The transonic 3-D inviscid small-perturbation solution of Bailey and Ballhaus is combined with a finite-difference solution for Prandtl's boundary-layer equations in order to include viscous effects. The inviscid-viscous interaction is modeled by means of the displacement surface, which can be thought of as the effective body surface seen by the inviscid flow. Displacement thickness, lift, and pressure distributions resulting from the combined solution are presented for transonic flows about the RAE 101 A wing and a Lockheed transport wing, both at small angles of attack. The influence of changing arbitrarily the start of transition on the displacement surface and lift is discussed for the RAE wing flow.