• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.445-450
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• 2011

In order to estimate a yacht sail performance, measuring system of aerodynamic forces acting on the yacht sail is constructed and experiments of flexible model sail are carried out at the medium-size subsonic wind tunnel of Chungnam National University. Experimental results for a flexible sail are compared with experimental and numerical results of fixed shape sail. In case of a fixed shape sail, lift and drag coefficients are rarely changed at all velocity conditions. However, those of the flexible sail are decreased as the incoming velocity is increased. These are understandably resulted from shape variations due to the flexible material. Therefore aero-elastic similarity should be more carefully considered in the model test rather than other similarities.