In this two-week class project, we attempted to ascertain the relationship between the angle of attack of a small steering fin and its lift coefficient. The project members were myself, Jackson Compton, Nick Grum, Ethan Koproski, and Cecilia Schneider, advised by Professors Jason Dahl and Stephen Licht. The project was originally intended as either confirmation or disproof of a mathematical solution, but as the mathematical results were never forwarded to us we simply ran the tests without comparison. Our report is posted at the bottom of the page.
Skills developed: Instrumentation, Data analysis, Experiment design, Simple fabrication
Abstract
This experiment was undertaken with the purpose of determining the lift coefficients of the steering fins on the Bluefin Sandshark autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for varying angles of attack. The objective was accomplished by creating an apparatus which measured the lift forces generated by the fin in a flow-tank or flume at differing angles of attack, and then solving the lift-force equation for the lift coefficients at those angles. The lift coefficient was plotted as a function of angle of attack and was observed to increase with the angle of attack up to around 15 degrees before stalling. Further testing, a faster flow channel, and a more accurate method of measuring the angle of attack would have been beneficial to the experiment.
Click the file name next to the download button below to view our report as an in-browser PDF (right-click to open in new tab, left-click if you prefer using the back arrow).
Tristram J Howard 