Nacelle design

The external cowlings of engine nacelles on large turbofan powered aircraft are good candidates for application of natural laminar flow. These nacelles usually have shorter characteristic lengths than other candidate surfaces such as wings and fuselages and therefore have lower characteristic Reynolds numbers. A conceptive figure of the natural flow nacelle (NLF) is shown. On the typical nacelle the flow accelerates to a curvature induced velocity peak near the lip and then decelerates over the remainder of the nacelle length. Transition occurs near the start of the deceleration, so turbulent flow with high friction coefficient exists over most of the nacelle length. On the other hand, the NLF nacelle is contoured to have an accelerating flow over most of its length, so transition is delayed, and a relatively lower friction drag exists over most of the nacelle. The motivation for development of the LFN is a potential 40 to 50 percent reduction in nacelle friction drag.