XFOIL

Written in	Fortran
License	GPL
Website	web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/xfoil

XFOIL is an interactive program for the design and analysis of subsonic isolated airfoils. Given the coordinates specifying the shape of a 2D airfoil, Reynolds and Mach numbers, XFOIL can calculate the pressure distribution on the airfoil and hence lift and drag characteristics. The program also allows inverse design - it will vary an airfoil shape to achieve the desired parameters. It is released under the GNU GPL.

History

XFOIL was first developed by Mark Drela at MIT as a design tool for the MIT Daedalus project in the 1980s. ^[1] It was further developed in collaboration with Harold Youngren. The current version is 6.99, released in December 2013. Despite its vintage, it is still widely used. ^[2]

XFOIL is written in FORTRAN.

Similar software

• Xfoil for matlab is a port of the original XFOIL code to MATLAB. ^[3]
• mfoil is a MATLAB script that uses almost the same physical models as XFOIL, but it is not based on XFOIL. It is also available as a Python script. ^[4]
• JavaFoil is an independent airfoil analysis software written in Java. ^[5]
• XFLR5 is an analysis tool for airfoils, wings and planes operating at low Reynolds Numbers, that has implemented XFOIL's Direct and Inverse analysis capabilities. ^[6]
• QBlade implements XFOIL via XFLR5 for use in wind turbine design.
• OpenVSP is a parametric aircraft geometry and aerodynamic analysis tool supported by NASA.

References

1. "MIT Aero-Astro Magazine - Mark Drela Profile".
2. "Aerodynamics and Aircraft Design Software". Archived from the original on June 8, 2010. Retrieved August 3, 2010.
3. "Xfoil for matlab". www.mathworks.com. 2023-08-06. Retrieved 2023-08-06.
4. Fidkowski, Krzysztof. "mfoil: Matlab (and Python) airfoil analysis code similar to XFOIL". www-personal.umich.edu. Retrieved 2023-08-06.
5. "JavaFoil".
6. "XFLR5". www.xflr5.tech. Retrieved 2023-08-06.

External links

• The XFOIL home page
• XFLR5
• xflrpy (XFLR5 fork with a Python binding)