UNSW Final Year Thesis: Optimisation of NS14 Sail Design

My final year Thesis at UNSW was titled "Optimisation of NS14 Sail Design". This consisted of testing a variety of square-top mainsails against variations in depth, draft, head width and leech shape to come up with an optimised square-head shape which gave the highest lift-to-drag ratio.

Testing was carried out using the wind tunnel at UNSW, computational simulations, as well as testing full-scale models during Sunday racing at Cronulla Sailing Club over the Summer season.

The following photos show the wind tunnel model in action...

The following photos show some of the CFD visualisations...

The following photos show some of full-scale sails in action...

Here are some videos of the Wind Tunnel Tests...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmZhYYoReho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyvzB0_62Xw