Predicting Maximum Lift Coefficient for Twisted Wings Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

*† ‡ A method is presented that allows one to predict the maximum lift coefficient for a finite wing from knowledge of wing geometry and maximum airfoil section lift coefficient. This approach applies to wings of arbitrary planform and includes the effects of twist and sweep. The method utilizes a correlation obtained from grid-resolved computational fluid dynamics solutions for 25 different wing geometries. These wings had aspect ratios ranging from 4 to 20, taper ratios from 0.5 to 1.0, quarter-chord sweep angles from 0 to 30 degrees, and linear geometric washout ranging from 0 to 8 degrees. For this range of parameters, the ratio of maximum wing lift coefficient to maximum airfoil section lift coefficient varied from about 0.70 to 0.98, with high-aspect-ratio tapered wings producing the highest values and lowaspect-ratio wings with washout and sweep producing the lowest values.