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Page:Aerial Flight - Volume 1 - Aerodynamics - Frederick Lanchester - 1906.djvu/136

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§ 89
AERODYNAMICS.

equilibrium,” unless a restraining couple of sufficient magnitude be applied.[1]

The third category possesses a particular interest in relation to aerial flight. The transverse force is characteristic of cyclic motion and is found as a consequence of the superposition of a cyclic motion on a translation, as in Fig. 48. It is due to the greater tension on the upper than the under surface of any circuit, such as that of the solid of substitution, ; this difference of tension is indicated by the numerical superiority of the squares in the region adjacent to the upper surface.

The connection between cyclic motion and a transverse force can be independently established by taking the transverse force as hypothesis and proving cyclic motion as a consequence.

§ 90. Transverse Force Dependent on Cyclic Motion — Proof.—Let (Fig. 51) be successive positions of the body or filament at the beginning and end of a short interval of time, to which the transverse force is applied. Let it be granted that the filament exert a force on the fluid at right angles to its direction of translation, and let us suppose that this force be sustained by a distributed system of forces, , etc., acting from the boundary of the region, and let the line represent the mean position of the force during the period under consideration.

Now the force forms with the forces and two couples (which from considerations of symmetry may be taken as equal) of opposite sign, that to the right being counterclockwise and that to the left clockwise. Assuming a steady state, the first of these is continuously engaging with and acting on undisturbed fluid on the right of the line , and must therefore be communicating to it counterclockwise angular momentum, and the following couple must be communicating clockwise angular

  1. For a full exposition of the theory of this branch of the subject, reference should be made to Lamb's “Hydrodynamics,” Chap. VI., and numerous references therein cited; also “Nat. Phil.,” Thomson and Tait, 313, 320.

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