Simulation of the interaction between the dynamics of an Olympic rowing boat and the fluid flow

Keywords

SC4I/Digitization, Innovation, and Competitiveness of the Production System
Author(s):
Duren, Umut
Title:
Simulation of the interaction between the dynamics of an Olympic rowing boat and the fluid flow
Date:
Friday 1st June 2007
Advisor:
Formaggia, L.
Advisor II:
Falzon, B.
Co-advisor:
Mola, A.
Download link:
Abstract:
A study of the fluid flow around an Olympic rowing boat was performed using the commercial CFD package Comet 2.00 and the forces on the boat surface extracted. The grid generation of the boat and its computational domain was performed using the commercial pro-AM (professional Auto Mesh) software. Three degrees of grid refinements for the same boat were produced, one of a minimal refinement, the second of an extra vertical refinement on the boat surface of the minimally refined grid, and one of an extra horizontal refinement on the boat surface of the vertically refined grid. The three refinements were tested in a stationary form with fluid passing by (as the model was in the reference frame of the boat), under an imposed heaving motion, under an imposed pitching motion and then finally the boat was set free to settle to its actual sink level under the influence of the forces experienced from the surrounding fluids. The viscous drag and lift, pressure drag and lift, and momentum force values were obtained for the boat during each of the simulations and the relative accuracies of the grids were compared. The vertically refined grid was found to have produced results to a much higher degree of accuracy than the minimally refined grid for most the simulations performed at relatively small increases in computation times. The lack of a need for an extra refinement in the horizontal direction on the boat surface as in the fully refined grid was also demonstrated in most test cases.