Interactive Airfoil Design
This page lets you select and modify a family of airfoils to suit the specific needs of your aircraft. Specify the section t/c and type (0 is a conventional peaky section, 1 is a rather aggressive supercritical section). The resulting pressure distribution is shown below. The parameter xt/c lets you force transition to turbulent flow at the indicated chordwise position. Setting xt/c = 1.0 corresponds to free transition while setting it to a small value such as 0.05 forces mostly turbulent flow.
Hints: Change angle of attack by either entering a value or by clicking on the angle of attack displayed on the plot. Holding down shift while clicking reduces alpha. You may also change scale by clicking on the Cp axis labels. Also note that you may modify the airfoil shape by clicking on the upper or lower surface to add thickness near the point where you have clicked. Hold down the shift key while clicking to remove thickness. The boundary layer computations indicate transition to turbulent flow (T), laminar separation (LS), or turbulent separation (TS). If you change parameters, click recompute to enter these values, but note that the airfoil is regenerated as well based on the specified section type and t/c.