Faculty of Engineering and Technology

Variable Cant Angle and Variable Sweep Angle winglets for Enhanced flight
Performance.
1. Dhanush K (17ETAS012008)
2. Jishnu H Desai (17ETAS012017) Department of Aerospace
Name of the 3. Narasimhan Vamshi (17ETAS012032) Engineering (2017 Batch)
Students 4. Anirudh R (17ETAS012037)
5. Yatharth Parashar (17ETAS012404)
Academic
Dr H.K Narahari
Supervisor(s)
Industrial
Supervisor(s)
Keywords: Cant angle, Sweep angle, AOA,

Abstract: In an aircraft, wings are the primary lift producing devices. By increasing the lift characteristics of the wing, it
might lead to greater efficiency in terms of transport and fuel efficiency.
Wing tip devices also known as winglets are designed to reduce the effect of wing tip vortices which occur during the flight.
It is a physical phenomenon where small vortices are formed near the wing tip and they lead to higher drag and this drag
component is termed as lift-induced drag. Winglets help in minimizing this lift induced drag component.
There are several geometric components which are associated when it comes to designing the winglets. Major of which
are Cant Angle And Sweep angle. By varying these two geometric parameters we design various configurations of winglet
models and choose the best one which effectively reduces the lift induced drag component for given range of angle of
attack at the transonic Mach number.
By increasing the sweep angle, the coefficient of drag decreases. And by increasing the cant angle the lift component
increases up to a certain limit and then it does not contribute toward lift it just acts as a vertical tail. Due to the addition of
winglets, there is increase in lift to drag ratio and the effective span of the wing also increases and it also helps in delaying
the stall characteristics of the wing.

Mach contour Baseline Wing Mach contour Winglet 6060 Pressure Coefficient contour

Results of the 3D wing and the winglet model in ANSYS fluent

Conclusion: The addition of the winglets increased the Lift to drag ratio irrespective of the configuartions
when compaed to a baseline model. It was observed that, as the sweep angle is decreased, the coefficient of
drag increases and as the cant angle increases, the coefficient of lift is increased up to a certain point and
then it does not contribute towards lift and behaves like a vertical tail. There is always a trade off between the
reduction in lift induced drag and the parasite drag which the structure of the winglet causes .

Book of Abstracts 1