Hi,

Apologies if this has been asked before, I have had a quick search but haven't quite found the answer I was after.

I am currently doing a thesis on the design of a rear wing for a formula student car. I am currently trying to validate my results for a 2D flow simulation of a NACA 0012 profile using data provided on the NASA website http://turbmodels.larc.nasa.gov/NACA0012_validation/CLCD_Ladson_expdata.dat

I have good correlation until about 13 degrees where it seems to tail off. You can see a rough graph comparing the wind tunnel data to my solidworks results below.

In order to simulate the angle of attack I have the airfoil sitting parallel with the meshline, and I select the angle of attack in the general settings.

Now to calculate the lift coefficient, I insert a global goal for the Normal Force (Y), and then insert an equation goal to calculate the lift coefficient. However, one thing I recently became aware of is that the Normal Force (Y) is always perpendicular to the airfoil, rather than perpendicular to the flow, which is what I want to know.

Is there a way that I can calculate the lift coefficient for the wing, perpendicular to the flow rather than perpendicular to the airfoil?

Also, if there are any other suggestions that might help me please feel free to share!

Thanks