• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.635-642
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• 2009

The three-dimensional turbulent wingtip vortex flows have been examined in the present study by using the commercial code FLUENT. The standard ${\kappa}-{\varepsilon}$ model is used as a closure relationship. The wing is constructed by using an elliptic body whose aspect ratio is 3.8 and the NACA 16-020 airfoil section. The simulations for various angle attack (${\alpha}=0^{\circ}$, $5^{\circ}$, and $10^{\circ}$) are carried out. The effect of Reynolds number is also investigated in this study. As the angle attack increases, the wingtip vortex becomes stronger. However, the relative vortex strength to inlet velocity decreases as Reynolds number increases.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.24-29
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• 2008

Aircraft fuel efficiency is one of main concerns to aircraft manufacturers and to aviation companies because jet fuel price has tripled in last ten years. One of simple and effective methods to increase fuel efficiency is to reduce aircraft induced drag by using of wingtip devices. Induced drag is closely related to the circulation distribution, which produces strong wingtip vortex behind the tip of a finite wing. Wingtip devices including winglets can be successfully applied to reduce induced drag by wingtip vortex mitigation. Winglet design, however, is very complicated process and has to consider many parameters including installation position, height, taper ratio, sweepback, airfoil, toe-out angle and cant angle of winglets. In current research, different shapes of winglets are compared in the view of vortex mitigation. Appropriately designed winglets are proved to mitigate wingtip vortex and to increase lift to drag ratio. Also, the results show that winglets are more efficient than wingtip extension. That is the reason B-747-400 and B-737-800 chose winglets instead of a span increase to increase payload and range. Drag polar comparison chart is presented to show that minimum drag is increased by viscous drag of winglet, but at high lift, total drag is reduced by induced drag decrease. So, winglets are more efficient for aircraft that cruises at a high lift condition, which generates very strong wingtip vortex.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2020

The wake shapes behind wings in formation flight are very important to the aerodynamics and performances of aircrafts. In the present study, a discrete vortex methood is extended to handle the wake rollups behind multiple wings. It was found that the relative distance between the wings and the rotational direction of the wingtip vortices have significant effect on the movement of the wingtip vortices. When the wings are close to each other, the wingtip vortices moved faster than the wings of large relative distances. The vortex pair of opposite signs generated from each wingtip has an effect of moving the wingtip vortices upward. The relative height between the wings has an effect of moving the wingtips along the centerline of each vortex. The wakeshape behind multiple wings is a function of the relative distances and thus is dependent on the configuration of the formation flight. In the futhre, a study on the vortex movement pattern will be studied.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.674-681
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• 2005

The unsteady evolution of trailing vortex sheets behind wings in close formation flight near the ground is simulated using a discrete vortex method. The ground effect is included by an image method. The method is validated by comparing computed results with other numerical results. For a lifting line with an elliptic loading, the ground has an effect of moving wingtip vortices laterally outward and suppressing the development of vortex evolution. The gap between wings in close formation flight has an effect of moving up wingtip vortices facing each other. For wings flying in parallel, the ground effect causes the wingtip vortices facing each other to move up, and it makes the opposite wing tip vortices to move laterally outward. When there is a relative height between the wings in ground effect, right-hand side wingtip vortices from a mothership move laterally inward.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.21-24
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• 2016

Accurate simulation of wakeshapes behind a wing is important for the performance prediction of the aircraft and the wake hazard problem in the airport. In the present study, wakeshapes behind a wing inside tunnels are simulated in regard to the development of wing-in-ground effect vehicles. A discrete vortex method with a nonplanar ground modelling is used for the simulation. It was found that the wingtip vortices move toward outboard directions when the wing is in ground effect. When the wing is placed inside tunnels, the wingtip vortices move along the tunnel wall with counter clockwise direction. As the gap between the wingtip and the tunnel decreases, the wingtip vortices move further along the tunnel wall. Both vortices from bothsides of the wing will murge, which will be studied in future using a viscous computation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.69-76
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• 2020

In the present study, we investigate the flow separation characteristics of a paraglider canopy model by tuft visualization. The experiment is conducted at Re = 3.3×105 in a wind tunnel large enough to contain the three-dimensional paraglider canopy model, where Re is Reynolds number based on the mean chord length and the free-stream velocity. The flow separation characteristics of the canopy model near the wing root are similar to those of a two-dimensional airfoil with a cross-section similar to the model. On the other hand, near the wingtip region, the flow separation is suppressed by the downwash induced by the wingtip vortex. As a result, as the angle of attack increases, the flow separation occurs from the wing root region of the canopy model and develops toward the wingtip.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 2024

Axial-flow fans are used to transport fluids in relatively low-pressure flow regimes, and a variety of design variables are employed. The tip geometry of an axial fan plays a dominant role in its flow and noise performance, and two of the most prominent flow phenomena are the tip vortex and the tip leakage vortex that occur at the tip of the blade. Various studies have been conducted to control these three-dimensional flow structures, and winglet geometries have been developed in the aircraft field to suppress wingtip vortices and increase efficiency. In this study, a numerical and experimental study was conducted to analyze the effect of winglet geometry applied to an axial fan blade for an air conditioner outdoor unit. The unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation and the FfocwsWilliams and Hawkings (FW-H) equation were numerically solved based on computational fluid dynamics techniques to analyze the three-dimensional flow structure and flow noise numerically, and the validity of the numerical method was verified by comparison with experimental results. The differences in the formation of tip vortex and tip leakage vortex depending on the winglet geometry were compared through a three-dimensional flow field, and the resulting aerodynamic performance was quantitatively compared. In addition, the effect of winglet geometry on flow noise was evaluated by numerically simulating noise based on the predicted flow field. A prototype of the target fan model was built, and flow and noise experiments were conducted to evaluate the actual performance quantitatively.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.107-125
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• 2023

Drag reduction is significant research in aircraft design due to its effect on the cost of operation and carbon footprint reduction. Aircraft currently use conventional solid winglets to reduce the induced drag, adding extra structural weight. Fluidic on-demand winglets can effectively reduce drag for low-speed flight regimes without adding any extra weight. These utilize the spanwise airflow from the wingtips using hydraulic actuators to create jets that negate tip vortices. This study develops a computational model to investigate fluidic on-demand winglets. The well-validated computational model is applied to investigate the effect of injection velocity and angle on the aerodynamic coefficients of a rectangular wing. Further, the turbulence parameters such as turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and turbulent dissipation rate are studied in detail at various velocity injections and at an angle of 30°. The results show that the increase in injection velocity shifted the vortex core away from the wing tip and the increase in injection angle shifted the vortex core in the vertical direction. Further, it was found that a 30° injection is efficient among all injection velocities and highly efficient at a velocity ratio of 3. This technology can be adopted in any aircraft, effectively working at various angles of attack. The culmination of this study is that the implementation of fluidic winglets leads to a significant reduction in drag at low speeds for low aspect ratio wings.