Aerodynamics: Core Topics (GATE AE) — Study Resources & PYQs
Basic fluid mechanics: fluid kinematics, streamline, streakline, pathline; conservation laws: mass, linear momentum and energy (integral and differential form); dimensional analysis and dynamic similarity; incompressibility conditions; Newtonian fluids. Elementary ideas of viscous flows: Hagen-Poiseulle flow, Couette flow, basic concepts in boundary layers, boundary layer thickness. Two-dimensional potential flow theory: sources, sinks, doublets, point vortex and their superposition, Bernoulli’s equation. Airfoils and wings: airfoil nomenclature; aerodynamic coefficients: lift, drag and moment; Kutta-Joukoswki theorem; thin airfoil theory, Kutta condition, starting vortex; finite wing theory: induced drag, Prandtl lifting line theory; critical and drag divergence Mach numbers. Compressible flows: basic concepts of compressibility, one-dimensional compressible flows, isentropic flows, normal and oblique shocks, Prandtl-Meyer flow; flow through nozzles and diffusers.