UIUC Airfoil Data Site

Airfoil Coordinates Database Version 2.0 (over 1550 airfoils listed, 248 kb)

For reference, the original airfoils in the list and new ones added by Selig are in an x,y format starting from trailing edge, along the upper surface to the leading edge and back around the lower surface to trailing edge (e.g., see E205). Lednicer's contributions are upper surface points leading edge to trailing edge and then lower surface leading edge to trailing edge (e.g., see Clark Y). Some of the airfoil listed do not close at the trailing edge, i.e. the trailing edge has a finite thickness.

Currently, the airfoils are listed in alphabetical order by the file name, which most often is the airfoil name or close. You can browse the directory, but it is suggested that you use your web-browser find command to search for keywords.

If you would like to contribute airfoils to this site, please email them to m-selig. Selig's x-y format is preferred. Please include a description of the airfoil and also identify the source. Typically, this description will be reduced to a few words and the database. Valuable contributions would include airfoils that have received some notoriety (good or bad), been used on a particular aircraft and/or been published in some form such as a magazine, conference paper, journal or book. Those contributions thought to be of general interest will be added. Updates to the list will occur infrequently and in batches.

Incomplete List of Contributors

• First, to those people not listed here who have offered useful information to help build and improve the dataset, thank you!
• Thanks go to Mark Barton for creating the airfoil plots in gif format for the Version-1.0 dataset. His simple Matlab code for reading the various formats and plotting the airfoils is listed here. The more recent plots were generated using a modified version of his matlab code.
• Shamim Mohamed (of Plotfoil fame) created a Perl script to convert the Lednicer file format to the Selig format. His code is here. [Along similar lines, Grant Grundler (grundler@hposl21.cup.hp.com) is thanked for his early work (12/96) in converting the Version-1.0 dataset to the Selig format.]
• Lloyd MacLean's instructions on getting the Selig-formatted airfoils into AutoCAD R14: here
• Elodie Roux' Matlab file for reading the UIUC data files. Looks like it only reads the Lednicer format files. Output is a plot if you make the mods mentioned in the file. It also does some splining and determines the max thickness.
• The database also received a big boost from Lawrence Hur and Mike Luman (UIUC undergrads). Thanks!

Princeton Tests and Related SoarTech Info

Other Airfoil Data and Information Sites

Matlab Panel Code w/ UIUC Airfoil Database

A potential flow code that simulates the flow past bodies of arbitrary shape including airfoils. It includes the 1550 airfoils in the UIUC Airfoil Database. Looks interesting.

Coordinate Importer for Rhino (CAD/CAM software)

Dale Fugier, one of the developers of Rhinoceros - a NURBS-based 3D modeling system for Windows, has written some simple instruction on how to import airfoil shapes into Rhino. The instructions are here http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/RsAirfoil 11/10/06

Another Coordinate Importer/Exporter for Rhino (CAD/CAM software)

Rick Loheed (http://www.islandengineering.com) has written some VBScript for Rhinoceros for importing and exporting airfoil shapes. Drawairfoil.rvb opens a file using the "Selig" format, then fits a through point NURBS curve through the data. The ExportFoilDat.rvb file will 'walk' a NURBS curve, and output the values. The starting point of the curve must of course be the trailing edge and point upward along the upper surface. It is very useful for evaluating airfoils sent in Rhino format, very common to the marine industry. Surfaces may be sectioned to create the curves quite easily. There is a cosine weighted leading/trailing edge scheme in there too, though it may be a bit clunky. XFOIL and XFLR5 did not like it so I took it out. Posted online 5/15/07. Actually, he sent these to me in June 2006!

XFOIL 6.91 and beyond (from Prof Mark Drela, MIT)

XFOIL is an interactive program for the design and analysis of subsonic isolated airfoils. It consists of a collection of menu-driven routines which perform functions such as:

• Viscous (or inviscid) analysis of an existing airfoil.
• Multi-point airfoil design by interactive specification of surface speed via mouse cursor.
• Direct geometric manipulation (flap, camber, contour deformation, etc.).
• Drag polar calculation with fixed or varying Mach and Reynolds numbers.
• Writing and reading of airfoil geometry and polar save files.
• Plotting of geometry, pressure distributions, and polars.

If you are serious about airfoil design and analysis, this is an excellent tool and hard to beat. I use this code routinely for analysis. As of 12/11/00, the software is free and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The main site includes versions for various platforms.

XFLR5

Andre Deperrois re-write of XFOIL in c++, and it includes tweaks to account for wings. Added 5/18/07

Martin Hepperle's Site

Airfoils, winglets, propellers and more. A really nice site!

Hiroshi Takeuchi's NASG airfoil collection

Most of the airfoils at this site came from the UIUC Airfoil Data Site coordinates. Also included is the UIUC LSATs low Reynolds number airfoil data. There are search features and interactive plotting routines that make this a useful site to those searching for airfoils with specific characteristics.

Shamim Mohamed's Airfoil Plotting Software (plotfoil)

"Plotfoil is a package for plotting airfoil sections to a variety of printers. It consists of three programs: plotfoil plots (in PostScript) airfoil sections (well, actually any section that is not smoothly closed) and allows for spars, sheeting, template sizes; editfoil is a program that allows airfoil sections' camber and thickness to be changed to any desired value; and mixfoils allows different airfoil sections to be hybridised. If you don't have a PostScript printer (or if you want to preview PostScript on your display) you need Ghostscript, from ftp.cs.wisc.edu." [Taken from the source. mss]

Jim Sonnenmeier Airfoil References

A cross-section of available data mostly for the low Reynolds number airfoil regime. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is still very good. Compiled ~1994.

NACA.BAS source code (last update: 8/20/98)

David Lednicer's dave@amiwest.com NACA airfoil coordinate generation program (about NACA.BAS in Basic). A Win95 version of the executable: naca.exe 145 kb . Before you try running the exe file, read this.

PANDA - Program for Analysis and Design of Airfoils (from Desktop Aeronautics, Inc.)

Computes pressures on arbitrary sections from coordinates in an ASCII file. Karman-Tsien compressibility effects. Integral boundary layer calculations for transition location, laminar and turbulent separation, and drag. Design option permits interactive changes in airfoil geometry with recalculation and display of pressures in less than a second. Built-in plotting of Cp or save results to Plot file. Available for MacOS and Windows.

XFOIL Results for Several Flying Wing Airfoils

These results come courtesy of Kelly O'Brien - UIUC AAE undergraduate. 1997

NVFOIL

Luigi Tenneriello has written "NVFoil, a Windows-executable software which can analyze any arbitrary 2-D body with the algorithms of Douglas-Neumann or Oeller (that is in a M=0, Re=inf aerodynamic field). It plots the airfoil and the pressure, for the desired angle of attack and number of points; then, it's possible to correct the results for the compressibility effects or for a trailing edge flap. It's also possible to analytically generate elliptic airfoils, or 4- and 5-digits NACA airfoils." Napoli, Italy.

Naval Postgraduate School online airfoil panel code from Prof. Kevin Jones

Online you can input the NACA airfoil parameters (coordinates are not needed), and the code will do the rest to give you the airfoil velocity distribution. A separate version includes all the ~1000 airfoils in the UIUC Airfoil Data Site. An excellent site.

SNACK

Another NACA code. This one is shareware, and it uses the UIUC Airfoil Data Site airfoils among others. It also creates output files to MSES, FUN2D, and AutoCAD.

Dave Register's Airfoil Plotting Program (freeware)

This is a nice and simple Win95/NT program for plotting airfoils with varying skin thickness and other features. A screen grab is shown here. [I like it - mss.] Download the executable program: AIRFOIL1.EXE (42 kb). 8/6/98

Hanley Innovations

Aerodynamics software from Patrick Hanley includes - VisualFoil, ModelFoil, WingSections, AirfoilBrowser. Most of these packages make use of the UIUC airfoil coordinates database.

FoilSim from NASA Glenn Research Center

A neat NASA web site where you can interactively change an airfoil's camber, angle of attack and other parameters and watch the resulting flow, pressure, and lift. Click on the "FoilSim applet".

CompuFoil ~3D~

Airfoil geometry modification and plotting software for foam cutting and rib layout.

CNC@NET Software for CNC Foam Cutting (in French)

Someone gave me this link and had this to say: "I think some people may be interested in the CNC software developed in France for CNC foam wing cutting. The site is in French, but it is an excellent program, best of all it is free."