Effects of Taper Ratio on Aircraft Wing Aerodynamic Parameters: A Comperative Study

İbrahim Halil Güzelbey,Yüksel Eraslan,Mehmet Hanifi Doğru

doi:10.26701/ems.487516

Abstract

Wing design is one of the most important tasks for a designer to overcome during an aircraft design process. Therefore, a designer need to optimize so many wing geometrical parameters with the aim of obtaining an efficient wing geometry complying with requirements of the design. Taper ratio is one of these parameters, which is the ratio of root and tip chord lengths of a wing. In this study, firstly, a high aspect ratio rectangular aircraft wing was numerically investigated in terms of some aerodynamic parameters including induced drag coefficient, Oswald efficiency factor and lift coefficient together with its span-wise distribution by means of XFLR5 computational fluid dynamics program. The assessment of mesh accuracy of the program was done at the beginning of the analyses. Later on, with the aim of observing the effects of taper ratio on aircraft wing aerodynamic parameters, the revised versions of the wing, which have the taper ratios from 0.2 to 1.2 (with the increment of 0.2) were analyzed. In conclusion, depending on the analyses results, the wings having different taper ratios were compared in terms of obtained aerodynamic parameters and span-wise lift distributions. Moreover, tip vortices of each wing, together with their sizes, were obtained and also compared.

Highlights

An aircraft designer has so many tasks to overcome during an aircraft design process
A high aspect ratio rectangular aircraft wing was numerically investigated in terms of some aerodynamic parameters including induced drag coefficient, Oswald efficiency factor, and lift coefficient together with span-wise lift distribution by means of XFLR5 computational fluid dynamics program
Taper ratio (λ), as a part of the wing planform geometry, is one of these important parameters to take into consideration during an aircraft wing design process

Summary

Introduction

An aircraft designer has so many tasks to overcome during an aircraft design process. One of the most important tasks is to design an efficient wing complying with the determined requirements. This is generally possible with optimizing so many geometrical and aerodynamic parameters of the wing [1]. Airfoil and planform geometries are the main terms to define a wing. An aerodynamically efficient wing can be designed when the suitable airfoil(s) and planform geometry coupled. Taper ratio is one of the parameters on planform geometry which means the ratio of the root and tip chord lengths of a wing. Its effects on wing’s aerodynamic parameters are important and should be taken into consideration during a wing design process [2] [3]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion