The characteristics of the flow field around canvas kite using the CFD

This research aims at establishing the fundamental characteristics of the kite through the analysis of the flow field around various types of kites. The approach of this study were adopted for the analysis; visualization by CFD(computational fluid dynamics). Also, the lift/drag and PIV(particle image velocimetry) tests of kites had been performed in our previous finding. For this situation, models of canvas kite were designed by solidworks(design program) for the CFD test using the same conditions as in the lift/drag tests. And we utilized FloWorks as a CFD analysis program. The results obtained from the above approach are summarized as follows: According to comparison of the measured and analyzed results from mechanical tests, PIV and CFD test, the results of all test were similar. The numerical results of lift-coefficient and drag-coefficient were 5-20% less than those of the tests when attack angle is . In particular, it showed the 20% discrepancy at . The numerical results of the ratio of drag and lift were 8-13% less than those of the tests at and 10% less than those of the tests at . Pressure distribution gradually became stable at . In particular, the rectangular and triangular types had the centre of the high pressure field towards the leading edge and the inverted triangular type had it towards the trailing edge. The increase of the attack angle resulted in the eddy in order of the rectangular, triangular and inverted triangular type. The magnitude of the eddy followed the same order. The effect of edge-eddy was biggest in the triangular type followed by the rectangular and then the inverted triangular type. The action point of dynamic pressure as a function of the attack angle was close to the rear area of the model with the small attack angle, and with large attack angle, the action point was close to the front part of the model.