A Numerical Approach to the Design of Sailing Yacht Masts

Abstract

In this paper a complete procedure for the design of sailing yacht rigs is presented. The procedure starts from the definition of the load model and the determination of the aerodynamic forces developed by sails and continues with the stress analysis of the rig in the non-linear domain. For the correct calculation of the sail forces a program has been realised by the authors on the basis of the lifting surface theory. For stress analysis, another dedicated program has been developed starting from a multipurpose finite element code operating in the non-linear domain, A peculiar characteristic of this procedure is that it can be run on a personal computer.