Aircraft Winglet Design

Sammanfattning: Aerodynamic drag can be decreased with respect to a wing’s geometry, and wingtip devices, so called winglets, play a vital role in wing design. The focus has been laid on studying the lift and drag forces generated by merging various winglet designs with a constrained aircraft wing. By using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations alongside wind tunnel testing of scaled down 3D-printed models, one can evaluate such forces and determine each respective winglet’s contribution to the total lift and drag forces of the wing. At last, the efficiency of the wing was furtherly determined by evaluating its lift-to-drag ratios with the obtained lift and drag forces. The result from this study showed that the overall efficiency of the wing varied depending on the winglet design, with some designs noticeable more efficient than others according to the CFD-simulations. The shark fin-alike winglet was overall the most efficient design, followed shortly by the famous blended design found in many mid-sized airliners. The worst performing designs were surprisingly the fenced and spiroid designs, which had efficiencies on par with the wing without winglet.