Analysis of the performance of a flexible winglet in the presence of gusts

Current aviation faces the paramount challenge of continuing with the actual trend of decreasing the fuel consumption of new generation aircraft. In order to confront such a hurdle, new modern and renewed aircraft designs appear every year. One of these ad-vancements has been the incorporation of the so-called winglets at the aircraft wingtips, which decrease the fuel consumption due to their reduction of the induced Drag. The objective of the current project is to find the load alleviation that a flexible winglet yields in the presence of gusts. This abatement of the loads can imply a lighter structure, and a consequent decrease of the fuel consumption. The presented model consists on a simplified structural model in which the only variable is the stiffness of a torsion spring which is allocated between the wing and the winglet. In order to accomplish such a goal, the CFD solver CFX is used to compute the aerodynamics. The final conclusion of the project is that the more flexible the winglet is, the higher assuagement of loads in the presence of a gust is discovered. Besides, it is needed a feasi-bility study of the implementation of the new proposed design in structural and aeroelastic terms.Ingeniería Aeroespacia