What is drag coefficient?
The measure of the effectiveness of a streamlined aerodynamic body shape that promotes reducing the air resistance to the forward motion of a vehicle is called the drag coefficient. Any solid in the air is subjected to the basic forces of flight( read: Basic forces of flight). The function of the drag coefficient is considered to be traced qualitatively.
The drag coefficient is always associated with a particular surface area. The two basic sectors of drag coefficient comprise skin friction drag and form drag( read: Drag in aerodynamics). It is commonly denoted as cd, cx or cw. The effect of interference drag is usually influenced by the drag coefficient.
Formulae to find Drag Coefficient
For which the reference area in the formula depends upon the fact that which drag coefficient is being measured. The reference area when considering the cross-sectional area of an airplane, the formula that is applied serves as:
Also, the point to be noted is that the surface area is not taken into account.
Volumetric drag coefficient
The aircraft and certain bodies of revolution rely on the volumetric drag coefficient. The reference area for the aircraft using the volumetric drag coefficient depends on the area of the square of the cube root of the volume of the aircraft. While the submerged streamlined bodies are found to use wetted surface area.
Final insights of the drag coefficient
When two objects are found to have the same reference area and that are moving at the same speed through a fluid will experience a drag force proportional to their respective drag coefficients. The drag coefficients for unstreamlined objects can be one or more than that when compared to the streamlined bodies.
It is advised that you take notes from scholarly articles before diving deep into the concepts of Drag coefficient and other technical topics, as the amount that presented in any blog is very much a simplified version of the technical topics and same is applied to my blog as weel.
References:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/drag-coefficient
https://automobile.fandom.com/wiki/Drag_coefficient