XFOIL
| Written in | Fortran |
|---|---|
| Website | web |
XFOIL is an interactive program for the design and analysis of subsonic isolated airfoils. Given the coordinates specifying the shape of a 2D airfoil, Reynolds and Mach numbers, XFOIL can calculate the pressure distribution on the airfoil and hence lift and drag characteristics. The program also allows inverse design - it will vary an airfoil shape to achieve the desired parameters. It is released under the GNU GPL.
History
XFOIL was first developed by Mark Drela at MIT as a design tool for the MIT Daedalus project in the 1980s.[1] It was further developed in collaboration with Harold Youngren. The current version is 6.99, released in December 2013. Despite its vintage, it is still widely used.[2]
XFOIL is written in FORTRAN.
Similar Programs
- XFOIL was translated to the C++ language and integrated in the program XFLR5, principally for use on model aircraft design.
- A MATLAB implementation called Xfoil for matlab has been written.
- An unrelated program called JavaFoil may be used for similar analysis. It is written in Java.
- Vortexje is an independent panel method implementation in 3D.
- QBlade implements XFOIL via XFLR5 for use in wind turbine design.
References
- ^ "MIT Aero-Astro Magazine - Mark Drela Profile".
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on June 8, 2010. Retrieved August 3, 2010.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)