The effect of the Mast on Sail Performance

Abstract

In this study, the airflow around a yacht sail with imposed final geometry is simulated using a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code reproducing full scale measurements. The code is a commercial viscous CFD based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The purpose of this article is to consider the effect of the mast on the performance of a sail. This research is related to a previously and published investigation written by the first author. That research was based on the aerodynamics of sails alone due to the lack of knowledge in regards to the geometry of the mast. The contribution of this new research is the calculation of how the mast affects sail performance using a recently acquired software. Furthermore, a methodology for the study of sails has been developed using this last software. The pressure coefficient on the sail, driving and side forces are computed among other variables.. The results are compared with both reference data obtained by full scale measurements. It is concluded that there is good agreement between the current results and the reference data.