Wingfoil board for beginners and light-wind conditions developed via bionic design approaches
Wingfoiling beginners in particular find it difficult to get along with this new watersport. To facilitate the start, the Institut für Konstruktion und Verbundbauweisen (KVB) teamed with a long-standing partner from the board sports industry in a ZIM research project to develop a wingfoil board inspired by nature.
A key focus of the project was the bionically inspired development of the hydrofoil’s mast and front wing for flow-optimized profiles with maximum efficiency. So flight behavior and mechanisms of various living organisms were analyzed and adapted. Special attention was paid to surface structuring to improve flow attachment on the wing and to enhance gliding properties.
The thus won concepts were optimized using a combination of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and experimental investigations, a. o. in a water circulation channel. The structural design, performed using FEM simulations, took into account the mechanical properties of commercially available systems.
Detailed view: Front wing (l.) and mast (r.) (© KVB)
Holistic development strategy
Using RTM made sandwich construction, components could be made both lightweight and high-performing, with the surface texturing of the mast integrated directly into the production process. The weight of the hydrofoil system – mast, fuselage, and front and back wing – was reduced by app. 30 %, down to just 3.5 kg. Still, the foil shows no loss of performance. Riders’ field tests demonstrated a speed increase of app. 10 – 20 %, primely attributable to the flowoptimized
mast with structured surface.
So lightweight construction, bionics, numerical simulations, and experimental testing can be successfully combined to create highly practical solutions in real-world applications.
Kontakt:
KVB Institut für Konstruktion und Verbundbauweisen gGmbH
M.Sc. Martin Zießler, Wissenschaftlicher Projektleiter
+49 3431 734 25 95
martin.ziessler@kvb-forschung.de
www.kvb-forschung.de
Complete hydrofoil system (© KVB)
