AERODYNAMIC AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE BLENDED WINGLETS FOR ALUDRA-EE UAV
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11113/jtse.v13.262Keywords:
Aerodynamics, CFD, blended winglet, cant angle, compositeAbstract
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) commonly experience induced drag generated by wingtip vortices, which negatively affects aerodynamic efficiency and endurance. This study investigates the aerodynamic and structural performance of blended composite winglets for the ALUDRA-EE UAV using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis. Three winglet cant angle configurations (0°, 45°, and 60°) based on the RONCZ 1046 airfoil were evaluated using ANSYS Fluent to analyse lift, drag, lift-to-drag ratio, and vortex intensity. The aerodynamic results showed that the 60° blended winglet produced the best overall performance, achieving the highest lift-to-drag ratio of 22.23 and the lowest vortex intensity among all configurations. The optimized winglet configuration improved UAV range and endurance by approximately 26.14% and 41.7%, respectively. Structural analyses were subsequently conducted using Abaqus to evaluate hollow and solid composite winglet designs with different composite material configurations and ply orientations. The solid winglet constructed using standard carbon fibre fabric demonstrated the lowest displacement and failure indices while maintaining acceptable structural integrity under aerodynamic loading. The findings indicate that the proposed 60° composite blended winglet can significantly enhance the aerodynamic efficiency and structural performance of the ALUDRA-EE UAV.
References
Tajuddin, N., Mat, S., Said, M., & Mansor, S. (2017). Flow characteristic of blunt-edged delta wing at high angle of attack. Journal of Advanced Research in Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Sciences, 39, 17–25.
Whitcomb, R. T. (1976). A design approach and selected wind-tunnel results at high subsonic speeds for wing-tip mounted winglets. Langley Research Center.
Mostafa, S., Bose, S., Nair, A., Raheem, M. A., Majeed, T., Mohammed, A., & Kim, Y. (2014). A parametric investigation of non-circular spiroid winglets. EPJ Web of Conferences, 67, 02077.
Lishifelshyal, W. (2016). Analysis of drag over a wing model with and without raked wingtip. EPRA International Journal of Research and Development (IJRD), 1(4).
Guerrero, J. E., Sanguineti, M., & Wittkowski, K. (2020). Variable cant angle winglets for improvement of aircraft flight performance. Meccanica, 55, 1917–1947.
Gueraiche, D., & Popov, S. (2017). Winglet geometry impact on DLR-F4 aerodynamics and an analysis of a hyperbolic winglet concept. Aerospace, 4(4), 60.
Padmanathan, P., Aswin, S., Satheesh, A., Kanna, P. R., Palani, K., Devi, N. R., Sobota, T., Taler, D., Taler, J., & Węglowski, B. (2024). Parametric optimization study of novel winglets for transonic aircraft wings. Applied Sciences, 14(17), 7483.
Israr, H. A., Chwen, T. S., Latif, A. A., Wong, K. J., Koloor, S. S. R., Yidris, N., & Yahya, M. Y. (2022). Preliminary structural design of coreless spoiler by topological optimization. Processes, 10, 2076.
Naufal, M. I., Wong, K. J., Israr, H. A., Nejad, A. F., Koloor, S. S. R., Gan, K. W., Faizi, M. K., & Siebert, G. (2024). Digital image correlation technique for failure and crack propagation of fibre-reinforced polymer composites: A review. Composites and Advanced Materials, 33.
Torenbeek, E. (2013). Advanced aircraft design: Conceptual design, analysis and optimization of subsonic civil airplanes (1st ed.). Wiley.
NATO AGARD. (1985). Aircraft drag prediction and reduction (AGARD Report No. 723).
Chmielewski, M., & Gieras, M. (2013). Three-zonal wall function for k–ε turbulence models. Computational Methods in Science and Technology, 19(2), 107–114.
Schrenk, O. (1941). A simple approximation method for obtaining the spanwise lift distribution. The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, 45(370), 331–336.
Madhanraj, V., Chandra, K. G., Swprazeeth, D., & Gopal, B. D. (2021). Design and computational analysis of winglets. Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education, 12(7).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright of articles that appear in Journal of Transpot System Engineering (JTSE) belongs exclusively to Penerbit Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Penerbit UTM Press). This copyright covers the rights to reproduce the article, including reprints, electronic reproductions or any other reproductions of similar nature.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the JTSE. Examples of analysis performed within are only examples and they should not be utilized in real-world. Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of any JTSE entities.
