The Joukowski Mapping: Airfoils from Circles
The Joukowski Mapping: Airfoils from Circles
A simple way of modelling the cross section of an airfoil (or aerofoil) is to transform a circle in the Argand diagram using the Joukowski mapping, . The map is conformal except at the points , where the complex derivative is zero. You can drag the circle's center to give a variety of airfoil shapes, but it should pass through one of these points and either pass through or enclose the other. In this Demonstration, a good result may be obtained by dragging the center of the circle to the red target at .
f(z)=z+1/z
z=±1
(-0.2,0.2)