SDK Question Aerodynamics of control surfaces

[Suborbital]

Hi all,

I'm trying to understand more about how control surfaces are defined for vessels, and what they actually do aerodynamically.

For the main airfoils, I must provide a function to CreateAirfoil which calculates CL, CM and CD based on AoA. However, when defining a control surface using CreateControlSurface, the only aerodynamic info I have to provide is a delta-CL value for full deflection, as well as an area and a centre of pressure (which I imagine are used with the dynamic pressure to calculate the force and moment values, as with an airfoil).

So, my question is - how are the control surfaces actually modelled with this limited info? Do they just produce a fixed CL/CD proportional to deflection, or is AoA taken into account under the hood too? Do they share info with the airfoils at all or do they produce a totally independent force?

Thanks, appreciate the help

 

[asbjos]

I can't imagine that they depend on the airfoil (other than requiring an airfoil to work at all). So I assume that they just provide the lift normal to the z axis (up) through the centre of pressure.
So I don't think they take the AoA into consideration.

But, as neither of us have access to the underlying code, your guess is (at least) as good as mine.