The aim of this study is to develop and validate numerical methods that solve the inviscid field equations (Euler) to simulate and design upwind sails. The three dimensional Euler equations for compressible flow are modified using the idea of artificial compressibility and discretized on unstructured tetrahedral grids to provide estimates of lift and drag for upwind sail configurations. Convergence acceleration techniques like multigrid and residual averaging are used along with parallel

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... ng platforms to enable these simulations to be performed in a few minutes. To account for the elastic nature of the sail cloth, this flow solver is coupled to NASTRAN to provide estimates of the deflections caused by the pressure loading. The results from the aeroelastic simulations show that the major effect of the sail elasticity was in altering the pressure distribution around the leading edge of the head and the main sail. Adjoint based design methods have also been developed, and used to induce changes to the camber distribution of the main sail. The design process resulted in a camber distribution that allows smooth entry of the flow through the leading edge of the main sail thereby, reducing the leading edge suction peaks that would be detrimental to the growth of the boundary layer.