When I increase the angle of attack from 0 to 20 the stall begins at 18 deg.
When I decrease the angle of attack from 20 to 0 the stall ends at 13 deg.
Why the difference and what value (13 or 18 deg) should I use as the stall angle?
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Sign up to join this communityWhen I increase the angle of attack from 0 to 20 the stall begins at 18 deg.
When I decrease the angle of attack from 20 to 0 the stall ends at 13 deg.
Why the difference and what value (13 or 18 deg) should I use as the stall angle?
This is called stall hysteresis. You have two different situations and the flow reacts differently in each of them.
When increasing the AOA
The flow is attached to the wing and the boundary layer is resisting the adverse pressure gradient as much as possible. At some point the flow detach from your profile and you have stalled let's say at 18°. At this point a huge recirculation bubble appears on the succion side of the airfoil.
Decreasing AOA / recovery from the stall
This recirculation bubble represents an area where the average flow speed is close to 0. Looking from the outside, for the free stream flow coming at your wing it looks like you have a new airfoil profile which is made from the old airfoil and the recirculation bubble. Most of the time this recirculation zone extend far beyond the trailing edge of the actual profile, reducing thus the overall aspect ratio (thickness/chord) of the profile. Slimmer profiles have less tolerance to stall and lower stall AOA thus explaining why your recovery only comes when the AOA goes below 13°.
Once the flow is reattached, you are back to the first configuration and you can go back up to the initial stall angle 18°.
Your stall angle is thus 18° but if you are in an airplane it means you'll have to lower the nose below 13° of AOA to recover.
There's an excelent thesis on this subject here from which this picture is taken showing the hysteresis phenomenon.