Steady Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Wing Flying Over a Nonplanar Ground Surface Part I : Rail

The aerodynamic interaction between a wing and a rail is investigated using a boundary-element method. The source and doublet singularities are distributed on the wing and its guide-way rail surface. The unknown strengths of the singularities are determined by inverting the aerodynamic influence coefficient matrices. Present method is validated by comparing computed results with the other numerical data. Rail width and rail height affect the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing only if the rail is narrower than the wing span. Although the present results are limited to the inviscid, irrotational flows, it is believed that the present method can be applied to the conceptual design of the high speed ground transporters moving over the rail.