Design and Analysis of Winglet for Low Subsonic Speeds

Abstract

Winglets are vertical or angled extension devices attached at the wingtips. They improve the aerodynamic efficiency by reducing the induced drag caused by wingtip vortices.This paper describes a wingtip analysis that is performed on a rectangular wing of NACA 2412 cross sectional airfoil. The objective of the proposed paper is to compare maximum aerodynamic efficiency of the wings with winglet and without winglet at low subsonic speeds. A rectangular wing with and without winglet is studied. In this investigation a wing of constant wing span, aspect ratio, chord and wing area is analyzed under idea flow conditions for reduction in induced drag. XFLR5 software is used for the analysis. Vortex lattice method is used in this software to solve the equations in the assumed inviscid flow.