CFD analysis of a round shaped air cushion vehicle with inclined skirt segments

Abstract

Abstract This article presents various two-dimensional CFD analyses specific to the area of the flexible skirt segments for a round-shaped air cushion vehicle. This study aims to analyse the flexible skirt segments and the influence of their inclination angle on the lift force values. The simulations, as well as the geometries of the flow domain, were carried out with ANSYS Fluent software, in which three parameters varied: tilt angle, segment height and air clearance height. The choice of segments height was based on a previous study by the authors and the values for air clearance height imposed in the present study were 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 mm. Regarding the values of the inclination angles, three values were imposed: 45°, 60° and 75°. Using ANSYS CFD-Post application, the resulting pressure / velocity contours and streamlines are interpreted and with Curve Fitting Toolbox application within the MATLAB program, the curves describing lift forces obtained from the simulation are approximated.