Applied Mechanics Commons^™

Experimental Investigation Of A New Spiral Wingtip, Naseeb Ahmed Siddiqui, Mohamed Aldeeb, Waqar Asrar, Erwin Sulaeman

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Experiments on the relative merits and demerits of slotted wingtips mimicking a bird’s primary feathers have been performed. The real emargination length of feather tips, their flexibility and curved shapes during cruise are considered in the present study. The experiments were performed at a Reynolds number of 3.7 x 10⁵ on a symmetric flat plate half wing of aspect ratio 3. Lift, drag and pitching moments were measured using a six component aerodynamic balance. Four different shapes inspired by bird primary feathers have been analysed. The rigid curved tip performed the best increasing the L/D ratio by 20%. This …