Designing Airfoils

[JPM73]

Hi NX'rs,

I've imported points & splines to make an airfoil profile.

I'm looking for more "controllable" methods to modify chord / airfoil lengths, leading / trailing edge radii or any other section of the airfoil.

I know points can be dragged around, but this seems dangerous to me, particularly when other areas of the airfoil profile become distorted.

Initially, I wanted to convert splines into a sketch, but converting seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

Are there any other ways to "control" splines & be able to put dimensional values to them? Will NX 7.5 synchronous modeling or freeform features work or are there other methods / best practices to use?

Using NX 7.5.

Thanks



Jason M.
Unigraphics NX Designer

 

[potrero]

NACA foils are parametric. One should be able to create a set of functionality inside NX (ie using the Expressions Editor) to drive a set of points, which then result in the foil shape being controlled.

For example (from Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACA_airfoil

):

The NACA four-digit wing sections define the profile by:

One digit describing maximum camber as percentage of the chord.

One digit describing the distance of maximum camber from the airfoil leading edge in tens of percents of the chord.

Two digits describing maximum thickness of the airfoil as percent of the chord.

 

[JPM73]

Hi Potrero,

Thanks for the info. This helps a little bit.



Jason M.
Unigraphics NX Designer