Investigation of Effects of Longtidunal Position of Center of Gravity of a Paper Aeroplane on Its' Horizontal Displacement.

摘要

This essay studies the change in behavior of a glider during flight with variying horizontaluddisplacement of its center of gravity. Even if it looks most of the humans like a child's play, itudinvolves all of the flight dynamics, which also apply for modern, high technology aeroplanes. Essayudis centered around the question “How does the horizontal displacement of a glider varies withudchanging horizontal placement of center of gravity of the glider?” Troughout the essay, the questionudis evaluated from two aspects. Firstly, what is the cause of the change in behavior? Under thatudaspect, causes of the behavior is explored and proved with data collected and processed from theudexperiment. Secondly, what are the implications of this change? Under this aspect, effect of theudcauses on the glider was discussed in order to explain how they cause the change in behavior ofudthe glider. At the beginning, a rigorous research on flight dynamics was made. Afterwards it haveudbeen decided to use a paper glider launched by a rubber band. A cotton string with a paperclip isudused to pinpoint the location of center of gravity and sytraphor plates on a string were used as winduddetectors. Fifty trials in total were performed and collected data is processed to obtain a result. Audgraph was drawn and function relating them was found. Later on, implications of this function andudits' strengths and weaknesses were discussed. Based on that discussion on function dsplayed inudthe graph, standard deviation and error values, conclusiveness of the result was discussed.udMoreover, discussions made under two aspects in which central question was evaluated, were putudinto coherence check with theoritical expectations. In the end, further questions and researchudareas emerging from the conclusion was discussed with proper explanations.