Abstract

This thesis addresses the problem of determining the hydromechanical forces generated by flexible hydrofoils considering their deformation. The research was done on the example of the composite windsurfing fin for the RS:X monotype class. Despite the assumption of their identity, the everyday practice showed that the variations in the hydrodynamic and mechanical properties occur, affecting their performance. This thesis focuses on the determination of differences between the windsurfing fins stiffness and quantify resulting variations in their hydrodynamic characteristics. The study was done using mainly computational methods supported by the experimental investigation. Firstly, the first order sensitivity analysis was used to determine the stiffness distribution of all analysed fins due to unknown internal structure of composite. Then, the substitute Finite Element Method model of the RS:X was created and validated. Further, two-way Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) calculations were performed using co-simul

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