TYPES OF WING

The wing is one of the most important part of an aircraft as is produces the majority of the lift and keep fuel intact in it. In this blog, we will see different types of the wing we usually use like the infinite wing, finite wing, high wing, low wing,mid-wing, elliptical wing, tapered wing, rectangular wing. 

INFINITE WING 

 Model of infinite wingspan in the test section of the wind tunnel is through and through. The flow about infinite wing is 2 dimensional i.e. in X & Y direction, as it is ±∞ in the Z direction. Lift, Drag, Moment coefficient for the infinite wing is represented as C_L, C_D, C_M, (capital letters).

FINITE WING   

The finite wing is defined wingspan (distance between two wingtips, denoted as b)

Which means the flow about finite wing is 3 dimensional i.e. the flow over the wing is in  X & Y & Z direction. Lift, Drag, Moment coefficient are represented as C_l, C_d, C_m, (small letters).

HIGH WING

The wing is placed on the top of the fuselage i.e. the centre of gravity (Cg). It is a negative distance w.r.t. aerodynamic centre (ag) in the Z direction as shown in the figure. Aerodynamic centre is a point where the sum of all aerodynamic forces is equal to 0. This is called a high wing. It is more stable as compared to the mid and low wing.

 MID WING  

 The wing is placed where the centre of gravity and aerodynamic centre have 0 distance in the Z direction. It is less stable than a high wing and more stable than the low wing

LOW WING

 The wing is placed on the bottom of the fuselage i.e. centre of gravity is a positive distance w.r.t. aerodynamic centre in Z direction it is called a low wing. It is very less stable as compared to the mid and high wing

TYPES OF WING ON THE BASES OF ASPECT RATIO

Aspect ratio:


        

Where C_d,i = induced drag

             C_L= lift coefficient

             AR= aspect ratio

As from the above equation, we can intuition that higher the aspect ratio less the induced drag

 Elliptic wing

        elliptic wing: this type of wing, it has a high aspect ratio. We don’t use this type of wing because it is expensive to manufacture

           Rectangular wing

         Rectangular wing: in this type of wing it has a low aspect ratio i.e. the lift distribution far from optimum.  
  

   Tapered wing

        Tapered wing: in this type of wing the aspect ratio is lower than an elliptic wing and higher than a rectangular wing.  Commercial aircraft have tapered wing because it is easy to manufacture