Construct · 2 fields · 2 citations

Where does windage collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
windage2 CONSTRUCTSWind driftMCCOY · WIND DRIFTWindage lossSWANSON · CHURNING LOSS

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2012Wind drift2017Windage loss
2026

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Exterior ballistics

Crosswind pushes the shot sideways

In exterior ballistics, windage is the lateral deflection a crosswind imparts to a projectile in flight, and by extension the horizontal sight correction a shooter dials in to cancel it. A wind acting across the line of fire shifts the bullet downrange by an amount that grows with time of flight and with how much the projectile has slowed, so marksmen hold off or adjust a windage knob to compensate. McCoy's Modern exterior ballistics develops the aerodynamics of this crosswind deflection for spin-stabilised projectiles. The referent is a wind-driven displacement of the trajectory (older gunnery also used the word for the clearance gap between a ball and the bore), and it has nothing to do with the power a spinning machine wastes churning air, which shares only the root notion of air acting on a moving body.[1]

Unit
The lateral deflection of the projectile, and the angular sight correction that cancels it
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Computed from crosswind speed, time of flight, and the projectile's retardation, and read off as a windage hold or sight adjustment

Rotating machinery

A spinning part wastes power stirring the air

In rotating machinery, windage (or windage loss) is the mechanical power a spinning rotor dissipates by dragging and churning the fluid that surrounds it, a parasitic loss that scales steeply with speed and matters most in high-speed motors, generators, and turbomachines. The rotor shears the air or gas in the gap around it, and that aerodynamic friction turns useful shaft power into heat. Swanson and colleagues' 2017 Annular gap windage loss measurements for high speed electrical machinery quantifies the loss in the annular clearance of such machines. The referent is a frictional power dissipation of a rotating body, measured in watts, and it is an entirely different construct from the sideways push a wind gives a bullet, joined to it only by the shared idea of air resisting motion.[2]

Unit
The power, in watts, lost to aerodynamic drag on the rotating part
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Determined by torque or calorimetric tests and by drag-coefficient correlations over the rotor's speed and gap geometry

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Nearby collisions

ballistic2 fields · 2 citationsjingle · one word, two constructsbody2 fields · 3 citationsjingle · one word, two constructsbore1 fields · 2 citationsanchor · a standalone construct

References

  1. McCoy, R. L. (2012). Modern exterior ballistics: The launch and flight dynamics of symmetric projectiles. Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 9780764338250
  2. Swanson, E., O'Meara, P., & Tsuei, H. (2017). Annular gap windage loss measurements for high speed electrical machinery. In Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo 2017, Volume 5B: Heat Transfer. American Society of Mechanical Engineers. https://doi.org/10.1115/GT2017-63201

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