Influence of Angle of Attack on Airfoil Lift: A Computational Study
The Doon School — Young Scientists JournalA computational study of lift and drag behaviour across NACA airfoil configurations, identifying critical stall angles through high-resolution angle-of-attack sweeps at 1° and 0.1° intervals.
Overview
Understanding the relationship between angle of attack and aerodynamic loading is foundational to wing design, rotor aerodynamics, and stability analysis. This study used computational fluid dynamics to map lift and drag coefficients across a range of NACA airfoil profiles, with particular attention to the onset of stall.
Methods
Simulations were conducted on standard NACA 4-digit airfoil geometries at Reynolds numbers representative of small unmanned aerial vehicles. Angle of attack was swept from −5° to 20° at 1° intervals, with refined 0.1° spacing in the stall region where lift coefficient gradients change most rapidly. Incompressible RANS with a Spalart–Allmaras turbulence model was used throughout.
Results
Lift coefficient increased approximately linearly with angle of attack in the pre-stall regime, consistent with thin-airfoil theory. Stall onset was identified as the angle at which the lift-curve slope departed from linearity by more than 5%, occurring between 12° and 16° depending on camber and thickness. Post-stall behaviour showed characteristic lift reduction and drag rise, with hysteresis effects noted in unsteady runs.
Publication
Findings are published in the Young Scientists Journal (2025).