Camber (aerodynamics)

The benefits of cambering were discovered and first utilized by George Cayley in the early 19th century.

[1] Camber is usually designed into an airfoil to raise its maximum lift coefficient CLmax.

Supercritical airfoils employ a flattened upper surface, highly cambered (curved) aft section, and greater leading-edge radius as compared to traditional airfoil shapes.

Camber is a complex property that can be more fully characterized by an airfoil's camber line, the curve Z(x) that is halfway between the upper and lower surfaces, and thickness function T(x), which describes the thickness of the airfoils at any given point.

The upper and lower surfaces can be defined as follows: An airfoil where the camber line curves back up near the trailing edge is called a reflexed camber airfoil.