Airfoil Simulation

There probably is no simulation software that can simulate the airfoils in the proof of concept prototype completely accurately.  Calculating lift is very difficult.  The only way to know for sure what the lift and drag forces will be is to build a proof of concept prototype and measure the forces.

We can get a general idea of the lift and drag forces in the proof of concept prototype by using NASA's airfoil simulator called FoilSim Student JS. 

The proof of concept prototype will use flat plate airfoils with an angle of attack of 0, a very small camber and a large aspect ratio.  Those types of airfoils can be simulated for linear air flow using FoilSim Student JS.

Clicking on the button below will take you to NASA's FoilSim Student JS airfoil simulator which will allow you to do simulations online using the Chrome browser.  (Does not work with Internet Explorer)   Choose a flat plate as an airfoil with an angle of attack of 0, a span of 4 ft, a chord of .3 ft, a camber of 5% of the chord, and see what the L/D ratio is at 100 mph.  Then vary those values to see how the L/D ratio varies.

If the link below does not work, Google "FoilSim Student JS".

The MOTOR should provide a fairly large gain in the torque outputted by the motors.  Without gain, the mechanism could not work.

Gain is achieved by the airfoils.  One can think of the airfoils as torque amplifiers.  There is a small torque needed to spin the airfoils and, because of a large Lift/Drag ratio, a much larger torque is produced by the MOTOR illustrated below.  Whether or not power amplification is possible remains unknown until a proof of concept prototype is built.

The results of running simulations using FoilSim are only approximations for linear motion of an airfoil, but they should give us some idea of what the results might be for rotational motion.

It appears that Lift to Drag ratios of 20 or more are possible.  I've seen simulations with L/D ratios more than 50.