Abstract

Various solutions for the fluidic winglet are proposed to investigate the impact of parameters such as velocity, temperature and injection direction, and slot area for air ejection. This study is based on the replacement to A380 solid winglet. The results reveal that maximising these parameters doesn’t always minimise drag; rather, a balance needs to be found to achieve optimal efficiency. The study demonstrates a potential maximum reduction of 3.81%, often linked with a decrease in lift. The optimal design is a single rectangular slot injecting at 260 m/s, exhibiting lower lift reduction than drag reduction and high efficiency. Thus, currently, there isn’t a significant advantage justifying a paradigm shift for these devices.

Keywords

computational fluid dynamics, aircraft performance, clean wing, winglet, fluidic winglet, wingtip vortices