Subject: Re:: Re: : Re: : Re: [harryproa] Rob's cheap wing sails |
From: "lucsimard@ymail.com [harryproa]" |
Date: 6/12/2018, 1:39 PM |
To: <harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au> |
Reply-to: harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au |
Hi Rob,
The conversation was about the stability of a free rotating rigid wing (see conversation below) and my point is that it cannot be compared to aircraft stability ...
In case you have to weather a storm by dropping a sea anchor and leaving the rigid wing free to rotate, the only/best solution I see is a symmetrical wing with the aerodynamic center of the foil and the CG at the center of the pole so to minimise wind, pitching and rocking induced wing rotation, since those could quickly create a lot of unwanted lift with disastrous consequences.
And even then! the rigid wing would have to be short and very very light to reduce the weight up there or the boat would have to be designed with a lot more static stability... so wide and/or heavy.
For sure you could have fully automated wing with electronic stability, a lot of preventative maintenance and high tech bearing but that is very expensive as we can see with the Walker Wingsail ... it's been already almost 20 years old and I don't see wingsail picking up since !
Don't get me wrong, I would love to have the performance of a rigid wing cruiser/racer but I think it is a nonsense for the money and real world cruising conditions..
All my hopes are in soft wingsails...
hello luc
> Aircraft dynamic stability (wing + tail + aircraft cg position) is very different than a free rotating wing on a pole (no tail, gravity play no role in wing rotation unless the boat is rocking).
Aircraft have a number of design solutions for controlling pitch, there are tails with shared distribution of load, there are tails that oppose lift popular for STOL, and there are all flying tails which provide +/- . They all depend upon the size or area associated with the couple or distance from Cl CG.
The one complication is that the shorter the couple, the more the tail is influenced bu the flukey turbulent downwash of the mainplane. From memory (always dangerous) something like 3.5 chord lengths distant presents a good numerical case. (I can check if needs be)
> Best case scenario is a symmetrical wing rotating on a pole at the aerodynamic center of the foil so there is no varying pitching moment with wind speed (CM=0). But also the CG of the wing need to be at the center of the pole otherwise when the wave rock the boat, it would create a moment that will rotate the wing and create lift, so a driving force and more boat rocking moment.
Probably the best case, except that depending on the section it is usual that the moment alters by angle of attack (AoA). I dont think this is the moment our learned friend was referring to though, I think he was talking about fore and aft at the masthead. Its a plausible concern.
> But still, nothing to do when the bearing jam! Something will go wrong!
In defence of that position, there have been hard wing sailing autonomous trimaran drones at sea for weeks at a time covering many thousands of miles in the most treacherous seas the Bearing Sea can offer. without a pilot. a crew, and with no ability to reef. To my knowledge non of these boats have been lost.
I think its wise to be very cautious over the bearing issue, but it seems technology and maintenance can get on top of the situation. We've come a long way from the Walker
Wingsail 1982.
> PS They use crane to remove rigid wing from a boat ..
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