Vortex development analysis effects of the use of winglets on Airfoil E562 in unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

The development of aerospace technology is always interesting to follow because designers and manufacturers of flying objects compete to produce the best performance. This invites various forms of objects and geometries to be studied and researched. The use of winglets is commonly used in flying objects in the world today. This study further explores the effects of using winglets on vortex formation in areas near the wing’s body and behind it. This research uses computational fluid dynamics using Ansys 19.1. The turbulent model used is k-ω SST with a Reynolds number of 2.34 x 104. The observed angle of attacks are 15° and 17° on Eppler 562 wing airfoil. This research found that each winglet configuration has different velocity path lines and vorticity magnitude characteristics different. In the areas where fluid flow jumps occur it is shown that there is an increase in fluid flow velocity. The forward wingtip fence can withstand the fluid flow jump better than other winglet configurations. The use of winglets results in a greater area of vorticity magnitude behind the wing than the plain wing even though the forward and rearward wingtip fence produces smaller values, especially behind the wing.