Nikola N.

Gavrilović Commercial Aircraft Performance

Graduate Research Assistant
University of Belgrade
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Improvement Using Winglets
Boško P. Rašuo Aerodynamic drag force breakdown of a typical transport aircraft shows
Full Professor that lift-induced drag can amount to as much as 40% of total drag at
University of Belgrade cruise conditions and 80-90% of the total drag in take-off configuration.
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
One way of reducing lift-induced drag is by using wing-tip devices. By
George S. Dulikravich applying several types of winglets, which are already used on commercial
Full Professor airplanes, we study their influence on aircraft performance. Numerical
Florida International University investigation of five configurations of winglets is described and
Department of Mechanical and Materials
Engineering, Miami, Florida,
preliminary indications of their aerodynamic performance are provided.
USA Moreover, using advanced multi-objective design optimization software an
optimal one-parameter winglet configuration was determined that
Vladimir B. Parezanović simultaneously minimizes drag and maximizes lift
Researcher
Institute PPRIME, CNRS UPR3346
Poitiers, Keywords: Winglet, Bionics, Computational fluid dynamics, Drag
France reduction, Lift-induced drag, Optimization.

1. INTRODUCTION the concept of winglets in the late 1970s [4]. This

research provided a fundamental knowledge and design
The main motivation for using wingtip devices is approach required for extremely attractive option to
reduction of lift-induced drag force. Environmental improve aerodynamic efficiency of civilian aircraft,
issues and rising operational costs have forced industry reducing their fuel consumption and increasing
to improve the efficiency of commercial air transport operating range.
and this has led to some innovative developments for
reducing lift-induced drag. Several different types of 2. LIFT AND DRAG OF FINITE SPAN WINGS
wingtip devices have been developed during this quest
for efficiency and the selection of wingtip device Finite span wings generate lift due to pressure
depends on the specific situation and airplane type. imbalance between the bottom surface (high pressure)
Commercial passenger aircrafts spend most of their and the top surface (low pressure). The higher pressure
operational life at cruise condition, thus all wingtip air under the wing flows around the wingtips and tries to
shapes need to be examined in those conditions in order displace the lower pressure air on the top of the wing.
to justify their purpose. The flow around a wingtip is sketched in Fig. 1. These
Winglets allow for significant improvements in the phenomena are referred to as wingtip vortices with high
aircraft fuel efficiency, range, stability, and even control velocities and low pressure at their cores. These vortices
and handling [1]. They are traditionally considered to be induce a downward flow known as the downwash. This
near-vertical, wing-like surfaces that can extend both downwash has the effect of tilting the free-stream
above and below the wing tip where they are placed. velocity to produce a local relative downward wind,
Some designs have demonstrated impressive results, which reduces the angle of attack that the wing
like 7 percent gains in lift-to-drag ratio and a 20 percent experiences. Moreover, it creates a component of drag,
reduction in drag due to lift at cruise conditions [2]. the lift-induced drag, as presented in [5].
The concept of winglets was originally developed in Equation of the total drag of a wing is a sum of the
the late 1800s by British aerodynamicist Frederick W. parasite drag and the induced drag. In terms of non-
Lanchester, who patented an idea that a vertical surface dimensional coefficient of drag it is [5]:
(end plate) at the wingtip would reduce drag by
controlling wingtip vortices [3]. Unfortunately the CD  CD 0  CDind (1)
concept never demonstrated its effectiveness in practice Here, CD0 is the drag coefficient at zero lift and is
because the increase in drag due to skin friction and known as the parasite drag coefficient, which is
flow separation outweighed any lift-induced drag
independent of the lift. The second term on the right-
benefit. Long after Frederick W. Lanchester, engineers
hand side of Eq. (1) is the lift-induced drag coefficient,
at NASA Langley Research Centre inspired by an
CDind, defined as:
article in Science Magazine on the flight characteristics
of soaring birds and their use of tip feathers to control CL2
flight, continued on the quest to reduce induced drag CDind  (2)
and improve aircraft performance and further develop  e
In Eq. (2), CL is the wing lift coefficient, λ is the
Received: May 2014, Accepted: July 2014 wing aspect ratio and e is Oswald efficiency factor
Correspondence to: Boško Rašuo (which is a correction factor that accounts for the
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, difference between the actual wing and an ideal wing
Kraljice Marije 16, 11120 Belgrade 35, Serbia having the same aspect ratio and elliptical lift
E-mail: brasuo@mas.bg.ac.rs distribution) or wingspan efficiency.
doi:10.5937/fmet1501001G
© Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Belgrade. All rights reserved FME Transactions (2015) 43, 1-8 1
 interact with the boundary layer flow causing a drag
inducing vortex, negating some of the benefits of the
winglet. Such blended winglets are used on business jets
and sailplanes, where individual buyer preference is an
important marketing aspect [1]. Blended winglet used in
this work is shown in Fig 3.

Figure 1. Wingtip vortex

3. CFD ANALYSIS

The computational effort performed in this research

consisted of three stages. The work began from pre-
processing stage of geometry setup and grid generation.
The geometry of the passenger aircraft model was Figure 3. Blended winglet
drawn using CATIA V5 R21 [6]. Geometry setup was
made using surface design in order to draw 3D model as A wingtip fence refers to the winglets used in some
shown in Fig 2. Computational grid was generated by Airbus airplane models which include surfaces
Auto Mesh program in ANSYS. The second stage was extending above and below the wing tip. Both surfaces
CFD simulation by FLUENT software using finite are shorter than or equivalent to a winglet possessing
volume approach. Finally, the post-processing stage was similar aerodynamic benefits. Wingtip fences were the
used where the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing preferred wingtip device of Airbus for many years [4].
were defined [7]. Wingtip fence modelled in CATIA is shown in Fig 4.

3.1 Geometry

As a representative aircraft geometry, a typical medium-

size commercial aircraft was chosen because such
aircraft performs a large number of flights per year, thus
fuel consumption is of great importance. The wingspan
of the representative aircraft was 38 m. Tail height,
length and wing area were 13.5 m, 47 m and 194 m2,
respectively. The airfoil chosen for the root of the wing
was NACA 641-412, while the wingtip airfoil was
NACA 65-410.
Figure 4. Wingtip fence

The Boeing 737 MAX uses a new type of wingtip

device. Resembling a three-way hybrid between a
blended winglet, wingtip fence, and raked wingtip,
Boeing claims that this new design should deliver an
additional 1.5% improvement in fuel economy over the
10-12% improvement already expected from the 737
MAX [8]. A similar shape was analyzed in the present
study as shown in Fig 5 and was recently optimized [9].

Figure 2. Airplane model geometry

The value of maximum takeoff weight affecting the

choice of wing airfoils was 115,000 kg. Control surfaces
of the aircraft had symmetric airfoils. The figure above
shows the geometry designed in CATIA software.
A blended winglet was attached to the wing tip with
a smooth curve instead of a sharp angle which was
intended to reduce interference drag at the wing/winglet
junction. A sharp interior angle in this region can Figure 5. MAX winglet concept

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 Another interesting shapes could be designed by 3.2 Computational grid
looking at analogous shapes in nature. Birds wingtip
feathers with their large variety in morphology are Unstructured tetrahedral grid was utilized for computing
biological examples to examine. In Fig. 6, it can be seen the flow-field around the 3D configurations.
how the wingtip feathers of an eagle are bent up and Unstructured grid is appropriate due to the complexity
separated (like the fingers of a spreading hand). This of the model. A typical mesh is made-up of
wingtip feathers slotted configuration is thought to approximately 8 million elements. After the gridding
reduce the lift-induced drag caused by wingtip vortices. process, the grid was examined to check its quality by
observing the skewness level and abrupt changes in grid
cell sizes [11].

Figure 6. Eagle’s wingtip feathers

This implementation by bionic abstraction can be

improved even further and aesthetically adapted to
wings by designing a spiral loop that externally wraps
the wing tip extension (see Fig. 7.) [10].

Figure 9. The computational grid on surfaces of models

3.3 Numerical simulation

The numerical simulation by FLUENT solver was

performed after the completion of the grid generation
and simulated 3D compressible turbulent flow using
Navier-Stokes equations. Turbulence model was the
realizable k-ε with appropriate solid wall boundary
condition. Solver control parameters and fluid
Figure 7. Spiroid winglet 1 properties were also defined at this stage.
However, for a variety of reasons, it is understood FLUENT software provides the user with seven
that identical copies from nature to man-made turbulence models [7]. Lower order turbulence models
technologies are not feasible in bionics. Instead, bionics tend to be less accurate than higher order ones. Spalart-
encompasses a creative conversion into technology that Allmaras model is a low Reynolds number one-equation
is often based on various steps of abstractions and turbulence model that solves for the kinematic eddy
modifications, that is, an independent successive viscosity, which means that Spalart-Allmaras is
construction that is rather a “new invention” [10] than a lightweight among available turbulence models. The
blueprint of nature. The following figure shows the last four turbulence models are skipped because they
form that was created after spiroid model, in order to require far too much computing power. So, the only
develop a technologically more feasible solution. options that are left are-two equation turbulence models,
the k-ε and k-ω model. Since its introduction, k-ε model
has become the most widely used turbulence model.
The key advantages of k-ε model are its economy,
reasonable accuracy and its applicability to wide range
of flow types. The realizable k-ε model is the best
option when dealing with flow containing high pressure
gradients and separation [12].
After all the parameters were specified, the model
was initialized. The initializing and iteration processes
stopped after the completion of the computations [13].
Computations are carried out on one quad-core
processor 3.2 GHz, with 16 GB of RAM, and each case
Figure 8. Spiroid winglet 2 took approximately 12 hours to converge.

FME Transactions VOL. 43, No 1, 2015 ▪ 3

Figure 10. A typical convergence history of Fluent
aerodynamic analysis

The results obtained were examined and analyzed.

4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The result from the 3D wing with winglet model was

compared to the 3D wing without winglet. The
discussions were focused on the aerodynamic
characteristics which include drag coefficient, CD, lift
coefficient, CL, and lift-to-drag ratio, L/D. In addition,
the pressure coefficient contours and path lines will also
be observed and studied. The simulation was carried out
at various angles of attack, α, and Mach number 0.8.

4.1 Pressure field behind wing

Calculated pressure field in a plane perpendicular to the

free stream and located three wing tip chord lengths
downstream of the wingtip without and with winglets is
displayed in Fig. 11. One can observe the intensity and
location of the wing tip vortex. It can be seen in the
following figures that vortex causes lower pressure in
area where it formed, which implies high local
velocities.
As illustrated in Fig. 11, wing without winglet forms
a stronger vortex, which causes larger induced velocity
and produces more drag, compared with any of other
wings equipped with a winglet.

4.2 Aerodynamic characteristics

By varying the angle of attack of the wing, different

values of the coefficient of lift and drag are obtained. Figure 11. Pressure field behind wing with different winglet
These analyses revealed a difference of lift and drag By using a winglet, we reduce the strength of these
coefficients for different types of wing tips. Figures 12 vortices and thus induced drag. This performance
and 13 show the lift and drag curves for clean wing and improvement can be very important for the performance
a wing with different winglets. during takeoff and landing where this leads to shorter
With increase of angle of attack, lift and drag both required runway length. By using these aerodynamic
grow. With increasing lift, rises the strength of the wing structures the climb performance is also improved by
tip vortices and thus induced drag of the airplane. achieving higher speed of climbing.

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 equiped with different winglets in comparison with a
clean wing. With reducing drag and increasing lift,
range L is significantly increased (Eq. 3). All values in
Eq. (3) are defined for cruise mode [14].

m 
0,5 2 1 
72 CL
L H 
c CD g

 s  1 1 
 (3)

In Eq. (3), c is specific fuel consumption, CL0.5/CD is

factor of range, m1 is mass of empty aircraft, s is wing
area, ρ is air density, g is acceleration of gravity and ζ is
the ratio between the mass of the fuel and the mass of
empty aircraft.
Resulting ranges obtained with different winglets are
given in Table 1 and Fig. 15 suggesting that spiroid
winglets offered the least amount of improvements.
Table 1. Range for different wingtip shapes at cruise mode
Figure 12. Lift curve
Cruise mode (M=0.8)
Type of wingtip CL0.5/CD L [km] % improv.

No winglet 37.39 7790.3

Blended 38.86 8096.6 3.78

Wing fence 39.07 8140.4 4.30

Spiroid 38.77 8077.9 3.56

Maxi 39.38 8205.0 5.05

Spiroid 2 38.31 7982.0 2.40

Figure 13. Drag curve

Figure 15. Range improvements over clean wing

Figure 14. Aerodynamic polar curve

Factor that directly affects range of the aircraft is
relation CL0.5/CD which is presented in Fig. 16 for
4.3 Range analysis different winglets. It is also interesting to notice that the
trade-off at maximum value of range factor is nearly
Improving performance in cruise flight regime is 7.1% improvement which not only affects the range, but
essential in increasing the value range of an airplane also fuel consumption as will be shown. The reason why

FME Transactions VOL. 43, No 1, 2015 ▪ 5

spiroid winglets demonstrated poorest performance is
because of their increased wetted surface and thus larger
parasite drag. Also, interference is at much higher levels
when using those shapes at wing tips as shown in [15].

Figure 18. Number of passangers carried using equal

amount of fuel

5. OPTIMIZATION

Figure 16. Factor of range To answer the question of what is the best aerodynamic
shape of the winglet, it is necessary to perform
4.4 Fuel consumption optimization for each of the previous analyzed winglets,
with the aim to obtain such a shape that gives the best
We have shown the effects of winglet shapes on performance of the aircraft.
aerodynamic coefficents. Now, we will present how Approximately 100 winglet shapes were analyzed by
they affect the fuel consumption. It is assumed that the varying the geometric parameters. Unfortunately, due to
plane flies 200 routes of up to 4000 kilometers per year. limited computer resources, we were forced to use only
Figure 17 shows the amount of fuel consumed for 30 one parameter which describes the height and angle of
years of use. It can be seen from Fig. 16 that the amount the winglet. This parameter represents the position of
of fuel saved can reach from 6000 tones up to 8000 profile that is connected with wing tip. Each
tones, depending on a chosen winglet. configuration was analyzed using ANSYS Fluent
Figure 18 shows the number of passangers carried software with free stream Mach number 0.8. Geometry
with the same amount of fuel for one year of usage, of the clean wing was the same in all of these analyses.
calculated in [15]. By using winglets, the amount of The boundary conditions were defined in the same way
passangers carried increased significantly for the same as in the earlier calculations.
amount of fuel. Response surfaces were then created with these 100
results. Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm –
NSGA II in modeFRONTIER optimization software
was then used to search the response surfaces for the
Pareto optimal solutions of lift and drag (Fig. 19).
Maximazing coefficient of lift and factor of range, while
minimazing coefficients of drag were three
simultaneous objectives.
Figure 19 shows the result of optimization where
each point represents a unique shape of the winglet. It is
interesting to notice that winglet shapes that extend
from upper side of the wing tip give higher lift and drag
coefficient. On the other hand winglet shapes that
extend from lower side of the wing tip give lower lift
and drag coefficients which confirms the validity of
earlier findings [9]. From a wide range of shapes
analyzed, the goal is to select the one giving the best
aerodynamic characteristics. The value of factor of
range was chosen in this study as an indicator that
defines the most efficient form of wing tip. Fig. 20
shows the value of factor of range for every shape
Figure 17. Fuel consumption analyzed.

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 and operational constraints. The alternative solution is
the use of aerodynamic structures at the end of the wing,
which reduces the strength of the vortices, thus reducing
the lift-induced drag.
In this research, we have tested several wingtip
shapes by adapting them to a clean wing. The
performance of the wing with specific winglet relative
to a clean wing has been studied quantitatively and
qualitatively, and the following advantages and
disadvantages were found.

Benefits:
 Improved generation of lift. CL is higher for the
whole lift curve
 Total drag reduction
 Improved lift-to-drag ratio. The maximum
value increased by up to 15 percent
 Delayed separation of air (wing stall)
 Significantly increased range
 Improved takeoff and landing performance
 Shorter climbing time
Figure 19. Optimization result for lift and drag at fixed
 Reduced engine emissions
 Meeting operational constraints for a minimum
of added span
 Reduced turbulence behind aircraft and
reduced the time gap between the landings

Drawbacks:
 Increased parasite drag due to increased wetted
surface
 Increased weight due to the device itself
 Requires new structural study of the wing

Thus, in order to achieve all the above mentioned

Figure 20. Factor of range for various winglet shapes
benefits in the Pareto sense of best trade-off
combinations between benefits and drawbacks, shape
The Fig. 21 shows the shape with the highest value optimization studies are required for every winglet
of factor of range (colored in red in Fig. 20). It should concept.
be pointed out that, when using a parallel computer with
sizeable number of processors and relatively large REFERENCES
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