An Airfoil Science Including Causality

Traditional simple explanations of how air flow generates aerodynamic lift neither identify fundamental mechanisms for the generation of lift pressures (i.e. causality) nor account for dissipation losses across streamlines. By comparison, the Navier-Stokes equation explicitly includes pressure dissipation and implicitly includes the mechanism for the generation of lift forces in surface boundary conditions. This paper critically evaluates computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation results to better understand how lift pressure generation and dissipation impact lift and drag on airfoils and lifting bodies. Three basic-physics’ principles emerge as fundamentally correct and insightful without the complexities of partial differential equations. Examples are provided on how the insight gained from fundamentally-correct simple explanations are advancing: a) new frontiers in solar and ground-effect aviation and b) insight into lost work and phenomena like boundary layer separation.