ANALYSIS OF WINGTIP VORTEX AND MITIGATION BY USING WINGLETS

Airplanes have played a crucial role in the industrial and commercial development. Therefore it is necessary to have an efficient system for transit through air. The most important component of an airplane is its wing. The aerofoil shape of the wing facilitates the creation of the lift and because of this, it actually flies. Therefore in the design of a wing, it is to be taken into consideration that it has minimal losses. One such loss of lift is due to the vortices produced at the wing tips on the wings. Wingtip vortices are circular patterns of rotating air left behind a wing as it generates lift. The wingtip vortex has been in existence since the beginning of flight. It has been an ever-increasing problem as the weight of each succeeding generation of aircraft has increased. In addition to the large drag associated with the lift-induced vortex, the vortex system of the large jumbojet aircraft of today has become a major problem to the air traffic controller in the terminal area as well as an unseen hazard to smaller aircraft during cruise flight. This is a result of not only the strength of the vortex but also the persistent nature of its flow. To fully comprehend the nature of lift induced wingtip vortex, the lift produced by a wing of an airplane should be closely examined. In this paper CFD is used in ANSYS to simulate the effects of such vortex on a scaled wing model of an airplane, and also simulates the effect of a vortex reducing device on the generation of lift and the vortex. The results can be useful in designing a better device for the reduction of wingtip vortices.