A Study of the Design of Adaptive Camber Winglets

<p>A numerical study was conducted to determine the effect of changing the camber of a winglet on the efficiency of a wing in two distinct flight conditions. Camber was altered via a simple plain flap deflection in the winglet, which produced a constant camber change over the winglet span. Hinge points were located at 20%, 50% and 80% of the chord and the trailing edge was deflected between -5° and +5°. Analysis was performed using a combination of three-dimensional vortex lattice method and two-dimensional panel method to obtain aerodynamic forces for the entire wing, based on different winglet camber configurations. This method was validated against high-fidelity steady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations to determine the accuracy of these methods. It was determined that any winglet flap deflections increased induced drag and parasitic drag, thus decreasing efficiency for steady level flight conditions. Positive winglet flap deflection at higher lift conditions may increase efficiency, but the validity of the vortex lattice method results for these conditions are dubious. A high-fidelity method should be used for the high lift condition to obtain accurate efficiency data.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MS in Aerospace Engineering

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Aerospace Engineering

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Rosescu, Justin J

Contributors dc:contributor

• Paulo Iscold
• Aerospace Engineering
• College of Engineering

• winglets
• air
• race
• vortex
• lattice
• method
• Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics
• Aeronautical Vehicles
• Analysis
• Fluid Dynamics
• Numerical Analysis and Computation

Identifier

10.15368/theses.2020.74

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.calpoly.edu:theses-3681