Publication Date:
2019-06-28
Description:
This report deals with the investigation of the apparent inertia of an airship hull. The exact solution of the aerodynamical problem has been studied for hulls of various shapes and special attention has been given to the case of an ellipsoidal hull. In order that the results for this last case may be readily adapted to other cases, they are expressed in terms of the area and perimeter of the largest cross section perpendicular to the direction motion by means of a formula involving a coefficient K which varies only slowly when the shape of the hull is changed, being 0.637 for a circular or elliptic disk, 0.5 for a sphere, and about 0.25 for a spheroid of fineness ratio 7. For rough purposes it is sufficient to employ the coefficients, originally found for ellipsoids, for hulls otherwise shaped. When more exact values of the inertia are needed, estimates may be based on a study of the way in which K varies with different characteristics and for such a study the new coefficient possesses some advantage over one which is defined with reference to the volume of fluid displaced. The case of rotation of an airship hull has been investigated also and a coefficient has been defined with the same advantages as the corresponding coefficient for rectilinear motion.
Keywords:
Aerodynamics
Type:
NACA-TR-164
Format:
application/pdf
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