Overall Contribution of Wingtip Devices to Improving Aircraft Performance

This chapter analyses and compares the impact on commercial aircraft performance of different types of classical winglets versus bio-inspired winglet configurations. The numerical methodology and results are presented and comparative results on the winglet aerodynamic performance are provided. To answer the question as to which is the best aerodynamic shape of the winglet, it is necessary to perform optimization for each of the previously analysed winglets, intending to obtain such a shape that provides the best performance of the aircraft. A bio-inspired winglet design is also compared with a classical winglet in a low-speed flow regime, typical for the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The bio-inspired winglet has a significant advantage over the classical winglet in mitigating the UAV's wingtip vortex intensity, which is an essential consideration in optimizing the separation distances of both manned and unmanned aerial systems for air traffic management.