Study of winglets applied to biplanes

Abstract

The possibility of improving the aerodynamic characteristics of a biplane configuration by adding winglets is examined both theoretically and experimentally. Theoretical calculations show good agreement with experiment in predicting inviscid drag due to lift. Theoretical and experimental results indicate that the addition of winglets to an optimized biplane configuration can increase the ideal efficiency factor by up to 13 percent, as well as increasing the lift curve slope and maximum lift coefficient