Investigation of aerodynamic characteristics of a wing model with RGV winglet

Abstract

This work describes the aerodynamic characteristics of an aircraft wing model with a Rüppell’s griffon vulture (RGV)-type winglet. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study using ANSYS 15.0 was conducted to study the effect of the RGV winglet on a rectangular wing. The NACA 65(3)-218 wing consists of 660 mm span and 121 mm chord length where the aspect ratio is 5.45. Eight different winglet configurations have been studied. Furthermore, the study is extended to study effect of cant angle and different angles of attack (AOA) to the winglet. A comparative study is done on aerodynamic features such as lift coefficient (CL), drag coefficient (CD), lift/drag ratio (CL/CD) and tip vortices to get the best RGV winglet design. The RGV winglet achieved highest CL compared to other types of winglets configuration. Based on contour plot analysis, the RGV winglet shows lower vortex formation compared to without winglet. The results show about 15 to 30% reduction in drag coefficient and 5 to 25% increase in lift coefficient by using an RGV winglet.