Cruise Performances Improvement of the Regional Jet CRJ700 using an Adaptive Winglet

This novel research evaluates how an adaptive winglet can improve an aircraft flight performance. A one-rotation axis adaptive winglet was designed and applied to the CRJ700 aircraft. Then, using a validated aerodynamic model, several winglet deflection angles were analyzed for several flight conditions of the CRJ700. The paper shows that the lift-over-drag ratio or the fitness of the aircraft was improved by up to 5.42% using an adaptive winglet for typical CRJ700 cruise conditions. Finally, it was simulated aerodynamic performance during a cruise performed at Mach number 0.75. This research shows that the adaptive winglet allows a regional aircraft such the CRJ700 to improve its cruise performance in terms of lift, drag of lift-to-drag ratio. Moreover, it has shown that the adaptive configuration allows to customize the optimization criteria in flight, which is an interesting advantage.