Rachel Leuthold

TU Delft

Monday, April 27, 2015, 11:00 - 12:00

Room 02-012, Georges-Köhler Allee 102, Freiburg 79110, Germany

The TU Delft’s Airborne Wind Energy group is lacking a fast and accurate aerodynamic model for 3D surf-kites with which to solve fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems. Historical 2D membrane double-wake vortex lattice methods and a 3D kite viscous-angle-of-attack-corrected vortex lattice method suggest that a multiple-wake vortex lattice method (VLM_MW) can successfully model 3D flow separation, the primary cause of membrane-flow model inaccuracies. This thesis is intended to evaluate the hypothesis that a quasi-steady VLM_MW can quickly and accurately model surf-kite aerodynamics, by modelling pressure- and suction-surface separation, as well as flow past the trailing-edge, with sheets of vortex rings shed from known separation lines. If a VLM_MW is well suited to aerodynamic modelling within a power-kite FSI solver, such a solver could be expected to decrease the development cost of airborne wind energy systems, and further allow the development of renewable electricity generation from the wind.