The CFD assisted design and experimental testing of a wing-sail with high lift devices

Atkins, DW

Abstract

A wingsail is a solid symmetrical aerofoil section which creates thrust in the same
manner as a conventional sail. Wingsails may either be used as a sole power unit,
e. g. for a yacht or catamaran, or as an auxiliary power unit on a larger craft, e. g.
fishing vessels, cargo ships or passenger liners. To augment the thrust created by the
wingsail, high lift devices are employed to increase both the maximum lift and the
stall incidence of the aerofoil. A wingsail must be symmetrical and capable of
creating an equal lift force with the flow approaching the leading edge from either
side of the wing centreline, i. e. the wingsail surface must act as either the upper, or
lower pressure surface.
Initial experimental work proved that using a symmetrical slat as a leading edge high
lift device both delayed the separation of flow over the wingsail upper surface and
increased the effective camber of the aerofoil. To increase the thrust created still
further, this leading edge high lift device was combined with a trailing edge high lift
device, a symmetrical single slotted flap.
Due to the large number of possible model configurations, a commercially available
CFD package was introduced to assist with the design. A series of validation tests
comparing the CFD with published and experimental results showed a qualitative
agreement with these results. However, the CFD predictions were not sufficiently
accurate to be used quantitatively.
The computationally designed triple element model was tested experimentally. Lift,
drag, pitching moment and pressure distribution measurements were taken from the
model. The results of this testing showed that the triple element wingsail increased
the plain wing Coax by 68% and the stall incidence by between 4* and 6'. The final
triple element wingsail design also increased the thrust of a plain wingsail over the
whole operating region. Thrust was increased by up to 83% at the wind angles where
a wingsail is most efficient. The results also proved that a commercially available
CFD package can be used as an effective and time saving tool for wingsail design.

Citation

Atkins, D. The CFD assisted design and experimental testing of a wing-sail with high lift devices. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 17, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 17, 2011
• Award Date: Jan 1, 1996