  Two configurations typical of fixed-wing aircraft are simulated with the
actuator line method (ALM): a wing with winglets and a T-tail. The ALM is
extensively used in rotor simulations to model the blades by body forces, which
are calculated from airfoil data and the relative flow velocity. This method
has not been used to simulate airplane aerodynamics, despite its advantage of
allowing coarser grids. This may be credited to the failure of the uncorrected
ALM to accurately predict forces near the tip of wings, even for simple
configurations. The recently-proposed vortex-based smearing correction shows
improved results, suggesting those limitations are part of the past. For the
non-planar configurations studied in this work, differences between the ALM
with the original smearing correction and a non-linear lifting line method (LL)
are observed near the intersection of surfaces, because the circulation
generated in the numerical simulation differs from the calculated corrected
circulation. A vorticity magnitude correction is proposed, which improves the
agreement between ALM and LL. This second-order correction resolves the
ambiguity in the velocity used to define the lift force. The good results
indicate that the improved ALM can be used for airplane aerodynamics, with an
accuracy similar to the LL.
