Introduction
OpenVSP’s Parasite Drag tool enables very detailed parasitic drag calculations and buildups by leveraging the existing model components and a variety of atmospheric, skin friction, and form factor equations. The tool runs Comp Geom in the background to compute wetted areas and automatically populates relevant geometric parameters into the solver. Users may hover over the header labels to display a context box for each parameter.
Clicking “Calculate CD0” will populate the solver window with the resulting data which can be adjusted in real time by modifying atmosphere or drag equations and parameters. However, the solver will not update if the physical model is changed. In this case, the CD0 must be recalculated by clicking the button again. A Parasite Drag tool result file may be generated by clicking “Export”.
The Parasite Drag tool documentation page contains formulas, plots, references, and comparisons for all methods and equations used in the analysis, including atmospheric models, and serves as an excellent collection of information in its own right.