Patent ID: 11897600
Assignee: THE BOEING COMPANY
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  Y | IPC B

Claim 8:
9. An aircraft wing comprising:
a trip device along a span of the wing to enable turbulent flow, wherein a trip device extends spanwise along an upper surface of the wing at a position that is just aft of a most downstream position for transitioning from a laminar to turbulent flow under a plurality of cruise conditions without the trip device,
wherein the trip device's position prevents downstream movement of the transition from laminar flow to turbulent flow, and
wherein the trip device's position is determined by:
predicting a plurality of target transition locations under a plurality of design conditions including the plurality of cruise conditions without the trip device, wherein each target transition location is a location where airflow transitions from a laminar boundary layer to a turbulent boundary layer, and
identifying the most downstream target transition location from the plurality of target transition locations as the position of the trip device, so as to limit downstream movement of transitions from a laminar boundary layer to a turbulent boundary layer under non-cruise conditions.