Can OpenFAST be used to analyse a rigid sail?

Wind & Water
1

Hello everyone,

I am in charge of doing aeroelastic analysis in a company that develops a rigid sail for hybrid propulsion for the shipping industry.

I am very interested in the OpenFAST software because a wind turbine and our solution have the same order of magnitude of Mach, Reynolds, same type of fiberglass composite structure. The difference is that my wing acts like a sail and does not rotate around a horizontal axis.

I wonder if I can use OpenFAST and its modules to perform an aeroelastic analysis (especially with a dynamic stall) and if so, what steps should I pay attention to?

Kind regards,

Théo

2

Dear @Theo.Tardif,

Perhaps you could represent your wing as a single blade (NumBl = 1 in ElastoDyn) that does not rotate (GenDOF = False, RotSpeed = 0 in ElastoDyn)? BEM aerodynamics likely don’t apply, but you may be able to get by with the free-vortex wake method (WakeMod = 3 in AeroDyn),

Best regards,

3

Thank very much for your answer @Jason.Jonkman

I will try your suggestion.