C-CLASS CATAMARAN WING PERFORMANCE OPTIMISATION

Abstract

This research is concerned with the wing of the C-Class catamaran of Team Invictus. The current wing is a reverse engineered design of a previously successful C-Class catamaran; a wing with an external flap. This design was modified at the trailing edge of the main wing with a morphing trailing edge. The modifications were done on the basis of engineering judgements. Due to budget restrictions expensive wind tunnel tests were not conducted. Thus results of this study are not compared to wind tunnel tests.Within the limits of this degree lift and drag polars (in this case a polar is the lift coefficient Cl or drag coefficient Cd plotted versus the angle of attack) of the wing profile were produced. This was done by the use of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). The standard k - ε turbulence model was concluded to be sufficient for this task.It was found that a 2% (of main wing chord) gap setting between the trailing edge of the main wing section and the flap is more efficient than the previously used 3%.Further more a flow visualisation study was conducted around the entire wing. The visualisation indicates that the boat hull has an effect on the pressure dis- tribution on the wing and that more detailed analysis is required to quantify the effects of the gap between the root of the wing and the boat.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2011
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Robert Prosser (Supervisor) & Dominique Laurence (Supervisor)