Newton or Bernoulli

The most common disagreement among aircraft engineering students is about the "cause" of wing lift.

There is a perceived conflict between the "Newtonian" and the "Bernoulli" view. Of course the contradiction is spurious, because Bernoulli's equations are derived directly from Newton's equa­tions. The two are in full accord, and they are both equally accurate.

Newton

The "Newtonian" view s that a wing generates lift by continuously trampling air down. The lift is generated by the reaction force. The problem is in determining how much of the surrounding air is influenced by the wing. This is not trivial, but it is well understood ever since the days of Prandlt and Betz.

  The Newtonian view is most enlightening when considering finite wings, including tip losses. We might call this 3D flow. There are chapters on this website, in particular the ones on propellers, which dive deeper into this view. These ideas can only be fully appreciated by a long, hard look at vortex theory.

Bernoulli

The "Bernoulli" view is that it is all due to pressure differences between regions of faster and slower local flow. This is of course also true, but finding the velocities around a wing or a streamline body is, again, not trivial.

  The Bernoulli view is more instructive when looking at details of the flow around 2D wing sections ( but also fuselages and other streamline bodies ). Local pressures and velocities are needed to understand boundary layer separation and viscous drag.

  Both views are needed for a full picture, but they never contradict.



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