Thrust in an Airplane. What exactly is thrust in aerodynamics?

The force that moves the aircraft across the skies is called thrust. Thrust comes into action when the weight of the aircraft as well as the drag affects the motion of the aircraft. Still, confused? Go ahead and read the articles on Drag in aerodynamics.

Thrust is the only force that moves forward whereas the weight force pulls the aircraft downward, the lift raises it and drag is enforced backward.

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How do we generate thrust? 

Not only propellers, space shuttles, and jets even the car we use in day-to-day life works on the principle of thrust. You heard me right, this time too. Time to open up the car’s bonnet dig in on some working engines. Thrust is built with consistency. Yes, you heard me right! I didn’t mean trust.

The Newton guy always appears when we get anything started with physics. This time he has only explained the generation of thrust with his third law of motion, but not what causes it. The two natural stresses that an aircraft experiences are pressure and shear stress. Here we find the culprit when pressure is applied as the basic source of thrust, the aircraft or jets are propelled forward than propelling in the rear direction. 

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A piston cannot create thrust on its own. It needs to be triggered(You too Brutus, having deja vu effects of Big Boss Tamil Season 2?). Jets and airplanes create thrust by producing pressure inside the engines. This increased pressure exerts more force in moving forward.  Coming back to the Newton guy, he proved every force has an equal and opposite force.  The opposite force here is the exhaust which is an effect of thrust that goes with the definition of Newton’s third law of motion

How thrust becomes the villain to aerodynamics?

For the aircraft to move forward using thrust, it has to overcome the effects of drag. A very classic example is the launching rockets. Here, the pressure is created using the burning and ejection of rocket fuels. This creates enough thrust to overcome the forces of weight and drag and propel the rocket upward.

The greater the speed with which the fuels are expelled out, the greater is the forward speed at which the rocket is launched against the layers of the atmosphere. Find it interesting? Feel free to discover our latest blogs on aerodynamics, a few taps away. To understand the concept better why don’t you, put your reading glasses on to read articles on basic forces of flight,  thrust in aerodynamics,  drag in aerodynamics, etc., on our blog pages. See you right there, bye!

References:

https://sciencing.com/thrust-affect-aerodynamics-22652.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust

5 thoughts on “Thrust in an Airplane. What exactly is thrust in aerodynamics?”

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