Catamaran-wind-walker. Drawing, description

PERSONAL TRANSPORT: GROUND, WATER, AIR
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Catamaran-wind-walker. Personal transport

Personal transport: land, water, air

Directory / Personal transport: land, water, air

Despite the almost complete equipping of ships with thermal engines, shipbuilders do not leave the hope of creating a fully functional ship driven by wind energy. Only in recent decades have appeared sailboats with automated setting, control and retraction of sails, wind turbines with rotary propellers, sailboats with rigid sails-wings and with serpentine sails...

A considerable share of participation in the creation of such structures traditionally belongs to modellers who create new unusual windmills. In our today's issue of the magazine - a description of the original design windship with a combined propulsion.

The main advantage of the combined drive is its lesser dependence on the direction of the wind relative to the course. True, this does not mean at all that the windship will be able to go heading to the left when the wind blows exactly in its nose. In this case, the windship, just like any sailboat, will have to tack - in zigzags, exposing the wind to either the right or the left side. However, on all other courses, the windship behaves quite decently, developing a speed comparable to the speed of traditional sailboats.

The propeller of the proposed wind-rotor is a combination of a wing-torch and a propeller kinematically connected to it. The wind spins the rotor, from which the rotation is transmitted to the propeller - and the boat sets in motion.

Structurally, the windship is a catamaran with plywood hulls; on the bridge connecting the housings, a wing-torch is vertically installed in two ball bearings, which is connected to the propeller with the help of a flexible shaft (cable in a Bowden sheath). The latter is designed for a relatively low frequency of rotation of the wingrotor, and therefore has an increased diameter and narrow thin blades.

Purely geometrically, a wingrotor consists of two half-cylinders facing each other with concave sides and offset relative to each other by a radius. Its rotation occurs due to two aerodynamic forces - the difference in pressure on the concave and convex blades and the reactive force obtained when air flows through the channel between the two half-cylinders.

The shell of the wingrotor is cut out of a thin and rather hard plastic - astrolon. Thin cardboard is also suitable - pressboard and even drawing paper, but they must be impregnated with varnish to increase rigidity and improve water resistance - parquet is better.

The shell is fixed with glue on four curly frames cut from lime plates 4 mm thick, and the whole structure is reinforced with pine slats having a drop-shaped cross section. A wingrotor of this design is rigid enough to withstand wind and centrifugal loads during its rotation.

The wingrotor is fixed on the flange of the bearing assembly. The latter consists of a bearing housing machined from duralumin, a pair of bearings with an outer diameter of about 20 mm and a cover. A hole is drilled in the free end of the shaft of the bearing unit according to the diameter of the flexible shaft cable; the cable is fixed in the hole by soldering.

The propeller of the windship is four-bladed, with narrow blades, its diameter is 168 mm. The screw is made of sheet duralumin 3 mm thick; the blade profile is convex-concave, with a rounded front and a pointed rear. The angle of installation of the blades (propeller pitch) will have to be chosen independently, gradually increasing it during sea trials.

The propeller is fixed on the stern shaft between the nut and spinner with a threaded hole. The shaft itself is located in the deadwood; in its front part, a hole is drilled for a flexible shaft, where the cable is fixed by soldering.

The hulls of the catamaran are made of plywood. The frames and transom are cut from 5 mm plywood, the outer sides, bottom and decks are made from 3 mm plywood. The inner sides and keels are sawn whole from 5mm plywood. It is most convenient to assemble the hulls in the simplest slipway - a flat wooden bar with slots in which frames can be fixed using small wedges. After the frames are installed, the cardboard templates of the side, bottom and deck are adjusted to the frame - after determining their exact configuration, plywood blanks are cut out from them, which are fixed on the frames with epoxy glue.

The bridge that unites the housings and is the base of the wingrotor bearing assembly is glued using epoxy resin from several layers of plywood with a total thickness of about 10 mm and a pair of wooden bars. The bridge is connected to the housings with the help of four bolts with M5 thread; for this, birch slats with nuts embedded in them are glued into the cases.

In the rear part of the catamaran there is another bridge made of pine lath with a section of 50x15 mm - a duralumin deadwood bracket is fixed on it.

Wind-powered catamaran with combined propulsion (click to enlarge): 1 - catamaran hull; 2 - central bridge; 3 - bearing assembly flange; 4 - rotor bearing assembly; 5 - rear bridge; 6 - deadwood bracket; 7 - propeller; 8 - steering pen; 9 - deadwood; 10 - wingrotor

Windwalker catamaran
Catamaran hull (right, left reflected view): 1 - bottom (s3 plywood); 2 - outer board (plywood s3); 3 - deck (plywood s3); 4 - nasal boss (linden); 5,6,7 - frames (plywood s5); 8 - inner board (plywood s3); 9 - transom (plywood s5)

Windwalker catamaran
Wingrotor: 1 - frames (linden s4); 2 - reinforcing rails (pine, rail 24x12); 3 - shell (astrolon, presspan or whatman paper)

Windwalker catamaran
Wingrotor bearing assembly: 1 - bearing housing; 2 - pin; 3 - flange; 4,6 - bearings; 5 - wingrotor shaft; 7 - flexible shaft shell; 8 - flexible shaft cable; 9 - bearing housing cover

Windwalker catamaran
Deadwood: 1 - stern shaft; 2 - cook-nut; 3 - propeller; 4 - support nut; 5 - body; 6 - flexible shaft cable; 7 - flexible shaft shell

It is best to start the wind rover in windy weather, when the rotor spins easily under the action of the air flow. The windship moves fastest in gulfwind - when the wind direction is perpendicular to the course of the ship. However, the wind rover can also go hauled - when the wind blows from the side-front - at an angle of 30 - 45 degrees to the direction of movement.

Author: I. Terekhov

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