cambered

Cambered describes a surface or profile that is curved away from a straight baseline. In geometry and engineering, camber often refers to the curvature of a surface relative to a chord line, which connects the leading and trailing edges of a wing or cross-section. The camber at a given point is typically the perpendicular distance between the camber line (the mid-curve of the surface) and the chord line. Surfaces with nonzero camber are called cambered; those with zero camber are effectively straight in profile.

In aerodynamics, camber is a fundamental design parameter of airfoils. A cambered airfoil has a nonzero camber, which alters its lift characteristics. Positive camber increases lift at lower angles of attack and shifts the zero-lift angle, enabling flight at lower speeds. However, greater camber also tends to raise drag at higher speeds, so designers balance camber with thickness and overall shape to achieve desired performance across operating conditions.

Camber is commonly specified in standardized airfoil families. For example, the NACA 4-digit series encodes maximum camber and its location along the chord as part of its designation. In general, larger camber values and different camber distributions produce different lift curves, stall behavior, and pitching moments.

Beyond aerospace, the term cambered is used in other contexts to describe surfaces intentionally shaped with curvature, such as road surfaces (camber for drainage) or architectural elements, where the curvature is designed to meet functional or aesthetic goals.