Authors: Satyaprakash Tiwari, Dr. Alok Choudhary
Abstract: The aviation industry continuously seeks advanced aerodynamic technologies to improve fuel efficiency, reduce drag and enhance aircraft performance. Winglets are widely used in modern commercial aircraft to minimise induced drag and control wingtip vortices generated during flight. This study focuses on the design and comparative analysis of lightweight Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) blended winglets for drag reduction in Airbus A380 aircraft. A lightweight blended winglet model using CFRP composite materials is developed and compared with the conventional A380 wingtip configuration, and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis with ANSYS simulation evaluates airflow behaviour, pressure distribution, lift characteristics, drag reduction and wake turbulence formation around the winglet structure. Eleven sources published between 2004 and 2022 are reviewed and organised into three themes covering commercial aircraft design and performance characteristics, lightweight structures with optimisation and technology development, and aircraft reliability with operational and economic considerations. The reviewed evidence is consolidated into comparative tables that map each source to its domain, focus, principal contribution and limitation, alongside an assessment of which of the study's claim areas the corpus supports and which efficiency levers it addresses. Five research gaps are identified and mapped to corresponding research directions. The comparative results indicate that the CFRP blended winglet improves aerodynamic efficiency by reducing induced drag and wake vortex intensity while enhancing lift-to-drag ratio and flight stability, and that the lightweight composite structure contributes to reduced structural weight and improved fuel efficiency.
