Aerodynamic performance of semi-wing with multiple winglets operating at low- and medium-range Reynolds numbers

P. Sethunathan, K. K. Ramasamy, A. P. Sivasubramaniyam and R. Kannan
Additional contact information
P. Sethunathan: Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Paavai Engineering College, Namakkal 637018, India
K. K. Ramasamy: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Paavai Engineering College, Namakkal 637018, India
A. P. Sivasubramaniyam: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Paavai Engineering College, Namakkal 637018, India
R. Kannan: Department of Aerospace Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India

International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), 2024, vol. 35, issue 10, 1-21

Abstract: Birds have traits that can induce better aerodynamic efficiency along with high manoeuvring capability during its flight, which could be shared with unmanned aerial vehicles for improving their aerodynamic performances. One such feature of the wing tip, i.e. the primary feathers of the birds could be an effective geometrical feature to reduce the wing tip vortices. This paper presents the bio-inspired wing tip devices, i.e. three-and four-tipped multiple winglets in reducing the strength of vortices emanating from the wing tip of the wing operating in the Reynolds number (Re) of 0.9794×105 and 0.9794×106. Different combinations of both three- and four-tipped multiple winglets have been designed by varying the cant angle of each tip. Numerical simulations were carried out using Ansys-Fluent by solving three-dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes formulations coupled with k-ϵ turbulence model to resolve the features of tip vortices. The simulation clearly indicates that there is a strong correlation between the size of the vortices and the aerodynamic performance parameters such as CL/CD, (CL)max, CL0.5/CD, CL1.5/CD. The three- and four-tipped multiple winglets are effective in reducing vortex drag by disintegrating large strength vortex which occurs in the tip of straight wing, into few numbers of small strength vortices. When compared to straight wing, three-tipped multiple winglet with the cant angle combination of 50, 30, 10 improves the aerodynamic efficiency by 22% to 23% and the four-tipped winglet with the cant angle combination of 60, 50, 40, 30 enhances the same by 21% to 22% in the Re of 0.9794×105. Even the longitudinal static stability has seen considerable improvement for four-tipped multiple winglets than three-tipped multiple winglets and straight wing.

Keywords: Multiple winglets; tip vortices; induced drag; low Reynolds number; aerodynamic efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0129183124501341
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:ijmpcx:v:35:y:2024:i:10:n:s0129183124501341

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S0129183124501341

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC) is currently edited by H. J. Herrmann

More articles in International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().