Designing the future of Airborne Wind Energy requires cutting-edge simulation tools!
At AWEC 2026 in Porto, Tom Lolies will present a Multi-Fidelity FSI Simulation Strategy for the Design of Ram-Air Parafoil Wings, focusing on aeroelastic modeling for flexible airborne wind systems.
Ram-air parafoil design has traditionally relied heavily on empirical testing, while high-fidelity turbulence simulations remain too costly for fast industrial design cycles. Tom will introduce a multi-fidelity Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) environment, integrated into our GENEPI software, designed to balance computational cost and accuracy across complex geometries.
The approach compares three aerodynamic solvers:
- Vortex Step Method (VSM) for rapid pre-design calculations
- 3D Panels Method (3DPM) for three-dimensional pressure gradients with viscous coupling
- Viscous RANS solver for high-fidelity pressure and shear fields
The presentation will discuss accuracy-cost trade-offs and validation against wind tunnel data for double-skin kites.
Thursday, 25 June — 11:45 AM, Room Berlengas. Looking forward to discussing simulation strategies and AWE design challenges in Porto.
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