윙렛 형상에 따른 공력 특성 해석

Aircraft fuel efficiency is one of main concerns to aircraft manufacturers and to aviation companies because jet fuel price has tripled in last ten years. One of simple and effective methods to increase fuel efficiency is to reduce aircraft induced drag by using of wingtip devices. Induced drag is closely related to the circulation distribution, which produces strong wingtip vortex behind the tip of a finite wing. Wingtip devices including winglets can be successfully applied to reduce induced drag by wingtip vortex mitigation. Winglet design, however, is very complicated process and has to consider many parameters including installation position, height, taper ratio, sweepback, airfoil, toe-out angle and cant angle of winglets. In current research, different shapes of winglets are compared in the view of vortex mitigation. Appropriately designed winglets are proved to mitigate wingtip vortex and to increase lift to drag ratio. Also, the results show that winglets are more efficient than wingtip extension. That is the reason B-747-400 and B-737-800 chose winglets instead of a span increase to increase payload and range. Drag polar comparison chart is presented to show that minimum drag is increased by viscous drag of winglet, but at high lift, total drag is reduced by induced drag decrease. So, winglets are more efficient for aircraft that cruises at a high lift condition, which generates very strong wingtip vortex.