DESIGN MODIFICATION OF WINGLET CONCEPT TO INCREASE AIRCRAFT’S EFFICIENCY

Abstract

Winglets are small wing-like lifting surfaces, fitted at the tips of some wings, usually with the objective of decreasing the trailing vortex drag and thereby increasing the aerodynamic efficiency of the basic wing. Fitting winglets can provide improvements in aerodynamic efficiency for a range of lift and Mach number conditions by decreasing the trailing vortex drag by amounts that more than compensate for any increases in the profile and wave drag contributions. The project intends to show the influence of winglets on aircraft wings by comparing both wings with and without winglets and also by analyzing different shapes of winglets on a wing. The wing used for this purpose is the Boeing 737 variant wing. All the design including that of the wing and the winglets were done using CATIA V5 software. The analysis of the wing and winglets are done by using FLUENT software.
The project studies the difference in the coefficient of drag on the wing with the use of winglets and different shapes of winglets are analyzed and their respective drag coefficients are studied. Then a new winglet is constructed with the design software and flow over that winglet is analyzed. The result shows the difference in drag with and without using the winglet and also by using different shapes of winglets.