A CFD Analysis of Wingtip Devices to Improve Lift and Drag Characteristics of Aircraft Wing

Abstract

Abstract The present study investigates the use of various wingtip devices to analyse the parameters of lift and drag for an aircraft wing. The coefficients of lift and drag are investigated in this research to optimize the wing design for enhancing the aircraft performance. A reduction in the drag produced due to wingtip vortices leads to reduced fuel consumption which contributes to the reduction in fuel emissions. The two-dimensional analysis is carried out for the selection of an apposite aerofoil by comparing the lift/drag characteristics of NACA 0012, 2415 and 23015 respectively at the velocity of 79.16 m/s at the angles of attack of 0°,4°,8°,12°,16° and 20°. The aerofoil section NACA 2415 is used to design the three-dimensional aircraft wing. For the analysis of the various wing tip devices the three-dimensional wing is incorporated with the spiroid winglet, blended winglet, wingtip fence and a mini-winglet. The CFD analysis for the wing designs is carried out for the take-off and landing phases of an aircraft’s flight because the effect of vortices is the highest during these flight phases. The angles of attack range from 0° to 20°. The CFD results reveal that for the wing designs, the plain wing produced the highest drag and the blended winglet proved to be the wingtip device with the most beneficial design. The results obtained for the 30° cant angled blended winglet and 60° cant angled wingtip fence produces additional lift when compared to the results obtained for the counterpart designs. The results obtained from the analysis are in close correlation to the established use of the wingtip devices.