Aerodynamic Performance Enhancement of Wing Body Micro UAV Employing Blended Winglet Configuration

Abstract

The wing-body configuration for Micro Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) decides their aerodynamics performance which potentially providing benefits for wing design optimization. This challenge leads to the development of future wing body aircraft. The numerical study, utilizing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), is developed in the current work to analyze blended winglet configuration on their performance. Critical parameters combination of taper ratio together with Cant angle were considered. Six wing designs; with no winglet as a baseline, winglet with constant Cant angle of 60° having 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 taper ratio values and winglet with a constant taper ratio of 0.3 having 50° and 70° Cant angles values, were investigated to observe the vortex distribution and streamline flow behavior of the wingtips. Besides, their effect on lift and drag coefficients and lift to drag ratios were also investigated. Using Reynolds-Averaged-Navier- Stokes (RANS) equation coupled with k- ω Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulent model, the current design founds that the best blended-winglet configuration for Micro UAV was the combination of taper ratio of 0.3 and Cant angle of 50°. It enhances the average lift to drag ratio to 9.84% while reducing the average wingtips vortex to 17% compared to the baseline (with no winglet).