Abstract
Turbulent flows around yacht sails were calculated to access the applicability of CFD for yacht design. Multi-block grid system was generated by using Gridgen package and Fluent was used to calculate flows around two sail system. A 30ft class sailing yacht designed and tested by KRISO was chosen. The interference effect between main and jib sails was analyzed. Pressure distribution on the sails was obtained and the center of effort was estimated. It was found that the jib angle affects the flow phenomena around a main sail due to the change of inflow angle. The location of center of effort is much different from the empirical formula based on a simple geometrical consideration. The calculated results are compared with the previous numerical and experimental results. Both CFD results are similar, but there are some discrepancies with experimental data. However, it is certain that CFD can be a very useful tool for yacht design.
