Experimental study of the aerodynamics of sail in natural wind

In order to evaluate the impacts of a motor vessel after installing wind sails, the aerodynamics of the sail should be accurately calculated. However most of the research on sails are based on stable wind instead of natural wind which is changing horizontally and vertically. In this paper wind tunnel tests are carried out based on stable wind field and simulated natural wind field, the results shown that there are 16–44% decrease in natural wind in terms of lifting coefficient and 11–42% decrease for drag coefficient. This would provide a valuable reference to the effectiveness evaluation of the impact of sails for sail assisted ships.