The aerodynamic theory of sails. I. Two-dimensional sails

This paper deals with the preliminaries essential for any theoretical investigation of three-dimensional sails—namely, with the two-dimensional flow of inviscid incompressible fluid past an infinitely-long flexible inelastic membrane. If the distance between the luff and the leach of the two-dimensional sail is c , and if the length of the material of the sail between luff and leach is ( c + l ), then the problem is to determine the flow when the angle of incidence α between the chord of the sail and the wind, and the ratio l / c are both prescribed; especially, we need to know the shape of, the loading on, and the tension in, the sail. The aerodynamic theory follows the lines of the conventional linearized theory of rigid aerofoils; but in the case of a sail, there is an additional equation to be satisfied which ex­presses the static equilibrium of each element of the sail. The resulting fundamental integral equation—the sail equation—is consequently quite different from those of aerofoil theory, and it is not susceptible to established methods of solution. The most striking result is the theoretical possibility of more than one shape of sail for given values of α and l / c ; but there appears to be no difficulty in choosing the shape which occurs in reality. The simplest result for these realistic shapes is that the lift coefficient of a sail exceeds that of a rigid flat plate (for which l / c = 0) by an amount approximately equal to 0.636 ( l / c ) ½ . It seems very doubtful whether analytical solutions of the sail equation will be found, but a method is developed in this paper which comes to the next best thing; namely, an explicit expression, as a matrix quotient, which gives numerical values to a high degree of accuracy at so many chord-wise points. The method should have wide application to other types of linear equations.

1951 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 254-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. G. Whitehead ◽  
L. Y. Wu ◽  
M. H. L. Waters

SummmaryA method of design is given for wind tunnel contractions for two-dimensional flow and for flow with axial symmetry. The two-dimensional designs are based on a boundary chosen in the hodograph plane for which the flow is found by the method of images. The three-dimensional method uses the velocity potential and the stream function of the two-dimensional flow as independent variables and the equation for the three-dimensional stream function is solved approximately. The accuracy of the approximate method is checked by comparison with a solution obtained by Southwell's relaxation method.In both the two and the three-dimensional designs the curved wall is of finite length with parallel sections upstream and downstream. The effects of the parallel parts of the channel on the rise of pressure near the wall at the start of the contraction and on the velocity distribution across the working section can therefore be estimated.


1963 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 620-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Maull ◽  
L. F. East

The flow inside rectangular and other cavities in a wall has been investigated at low subsonic velocities using oil flow and surface static-pressure distributions. Evidence has been found of regular three-dimensional flows in cavities with large span-to-chord ratios which would normally be considered to have two-dimensional flow near their centre-lines. The dependence of the steadiness of the flow upon the cavity's span as well as its chord and depth has also been observed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 825 ◽  
pp. 631-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Romanò ◽  
Arash Hajisharifi ◽  
Hendrik C. Kuhlmann

The topology of the incompressible steady three-dimensional flow in a partially filled cylindrical rotating drum, infinitely extended along its axis, is investigated numerically for a ratio of pool depth to radius of 0.2. In the limit of vanishing Froude and capillary numbers, the liquid–gas interface remains flat and the two-dimensional flow becomes unstable to steady three-dimensional convection cells. The Lagrangian transport in the cellular flow is organised by periodic spiralling-in and spiralling-out saddle foci, and by saddle limit cycles. Chaotic advection is caused by a breakup of a degenerate heteroclinic connection between the two saddle foci when the flow becomes three-dimensional. On increasing the Reynolds number, chaotic streamlines invade the cells from the cell boundary and from the interior along the broken heteroclinic connection. This trend is made evident by computing the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser tori for five supercritical Reynolds numbers.


1984 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Goldstein ◽  
J. Karni

A naphthalene sublimation technique is used to determine the circumferential and longitudinal variations of mass transfer from a smooth circular cylinder in a crossflow of air. The effect of the three-dimensional secondary flows near the wall-attached ends of a cylinder is discussed. For a cylinder Reynolds number of 19000, local enhancement of the mass transfer over values in the center of the tunnel are observed up to a distance of 3.5 cylinder diameters from the tunnel wall. In a narrow span extending from the tunnel wall to about 0.066 cylinder diameters above it (about 0.75 of the mainstream boundary layer displacement thickness), increases of 90 to 700 percent over the two-dimensional flow mass transfer are measured on the front portion of the cylinder. Farther from the wall, local increases of up to 38 percent over the two-dimensional values are measured. In this region, increases of mass transfer in the rear portion of the cylinder, downstream of separation, are, in general, larger and cover a greater span than the increases in the front portion of the cylinder.


1971 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 346-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Nash ◽  
R. R. Tseng

SummaryThis paper presents the results of some calculations of the incompressible turbulent boundary layer on an infinite yawed wing. A discussion is made of the effects of increasing lift coefficient, and increasing Reynolds number, on the displacement thickness, and on the magnitude and direction of the skin friction. The effects of the state of the boundary layer (laminar or turbulent) along the attachment line are also considered.A study is made to determine whether the behaviour of the boundary layer can adequately be predicted by a two-dimensional calculation. It is concluded that there is no simple way to do this (as is provided, in the laminar case, by the principle of independence). However, with some modification, a two-dimensional calculation can be made to give an acceptable numerical representation of the chordwise components of the flow.


1968 ◽  
Vol 72 (686) ◽  
pp. 171-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Neilson ◽  
Alastair Gilchrist ◽  
Chee K. Lee

This work deals with theoretical aspects of thrust vector control in rocket nozzles by the injection of secondary gas into the supersonic region of the nozzle. The work is concerned mainly with two-dimensional flow, though some aspects of three-dimensional flow in axisymmetric nozzles are considered. The subject matter is divided into three parts. In Part I, the side force produced when a physical wedge is placed into the exit of a two-dimensional nozzle is considered. In Parts 2 and 3, the physical wedge is replaced by a wedge-shaped “dead water” region produced by the separation of the boundary layer upstream of a secondary injection port. The modifications which then have to be made to the theoretical relationships, given in Part 1, are enumerated. Theoretical relationships for side force, thrust augmentation and magnification parameter for two- and three-dimensional flow are given for secondary injection normal to the main nozzle axis. In addition, the advantages to be gained by secondary injection in an upstream direction are clearly illustrated. The theoretical results are compared with experimental work and a comparison is made with the theories of other workers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 822 ◽  
pp. 813-847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azan M. Sapardi ◽  
Wisam K. Hussam ◽  
Alban Pothérat ◽  
Gregory J. Sheard

This study seeks to characterise the breakdown of the steady two-dimensional solution in the flow around a 180-degree sharp bend to infinitesimal three-dimensional disturbances using a linear stability analysis. The stability analysis predicts that three-dimensional transition is via a synchronous instability of the steady flows. A highly accurate global linear stability analysis of the flow was conducted with Reynolds number $\mathit{Re}<1150$ and bend opening ratio (ratio of bend width to inlet height) $0.2\leqslant \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}\leqslant 5$. This range of $\mathit{Re}$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ captures both steady-state two-dimensional flow solutions and the inception of unsteady two-dimensional flow. For $0.2\leqslant \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}\leqslant 1$, the two-dimensional base flow transitions from steady to unsteady at higher Reynolds number as $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ increases. The stability analysis shows that at the onset of instability, the base flow becomes three-dimensionally unstable in two different modes, namely a spanwise oscillating mode for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}=0.2$ and a spanwise synchronous mode for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}\geqslant 0.3$. The critical Reynolds number and the spanwise wavelength of perturbations increase as $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ increases. For $1<\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}\leqslant 2$ both the critical Reynolds number for onset of unsteadiness and the spanwise wavelength decrease as $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ increases. Finally, for $2<\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}\leqslant 5$, the critical Reynolds number and spanwise wavelength remain almost constant. The linear stability analysis also shows that the base flow becomes unstable to different three-dimensional modes depending on the opening ratio. The modes are found to be localised near the reattachment point of the first recirculation bubble.


1985 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. P. Sridhar ◽  
R. T. Davis

A new coordinate generation technique, developed by Davis for external flows, is extended to allow for accurate grid generation for a variety of complex internal flow configurations. The approach is based on numerical integration of the Schwarz-Christoffel transformation for polygonal surfaces. It is shown to be second-order accurate with mesh size due to analytic treatment of boundary singularities. The method is flexible enough to allow for treatment of severe internal geometries, for a high degree of control of mesh spacing, and for generation of either orthogonal or nonorthogonal grids. In addition, this technique directly provides the two-dimensional incompressible potential flow solution for internal flows, as well as a simple expression for calculating the grid metric coefficients. Sample cases include symmetric and asymmetric channel, diffuser, and cascade flows.


2011 ◽  
Vol 278 (1725) ◽  
pp. 3670-3678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke E. Flammang ◽  
George V. Lauder ◽  
Daniel R. Troolin ◽  
Tyson Strand

Understanding how moving organisms generate locomotor forces is fundamental to the analysis of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic flow patterns that are generated during body and appendage oscillation. In the past, this has been accomplished using two-dimensional planar techniques that require reconstruction of three-dimensional flow patterns. We have applied a new, fully three-dimensional, volumetric imaging technique that allows instantaneous capture of wake flow patterns, to a classic problem in functional vertebrate biology: the function of the asymmetrical (heterocercal) tail of swimming sharks to capture the vorticity field within the volume swept by the tail. These data were used to test a previous three-dimensional reconstruction of the shark vortex wake estimated from two-dimensional flow analyses, and show that the volumetric approach reveals a different vortex wake not previously reconstructed from two-dimensional slices. The hydrodynamic wake consists of one set of dual-linked vortex rings produced per half tail beat. In addition, we use a simple passive shark-tail model under robotic control to show that the three-dimensional wake flows of the robotic tail differ from the active tail motion of a live shark, suggesting that active control of kinematics and tail stiffness plays a substantial role in the production of wake vortical patterns.


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