Can OpenFAST be used to analyse a rigid sail?

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

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,

Thank very much for your answer @Jason.Jonkman

I will try your suggestion.

Dear @Theo.Tardif
I am working on a similar problem and was wondering if you have managed to use OpenFAST or AeroDyn. I would like to apply the aerodynamic loads to ANSYS AQWA. At this stage, I do not necessarily need to perform a full aeroelastic analysis, as I am considering the sail to be rigid. Would you recommend applying the loads directly as external forces, or using OpenFAST/AeroDyn? I would greatly appreciate it if you could elaborate a bit on the method you used and share any suggestions/publications. Many thanks!

Best regards

Saeed