Virtual
Wind Tunnel (VWT), was originally developed jointly by Dartmouth
College Thayer School of Engineering and North Sails and is now run by
the Stevens Institute of Technology. VWT is the first (and still the
only) computer simulator to accurately model wind flow on downwind
sails at 100% scale. When first developed, North Sails used the world’s
two leading low-speed wind tunnels (North’s own Twisted Flow Wind
Tunnel and Oracle’s IACC Twisted Flow Wind Tunnel) to verify it’s
accuracy. The results have given us great confidence that North’s “VWT”
predicts results with more accuracy than wind tunnel sail testing of
any kind. VWT provides powerful insight into flying sail shape, sail
drive, shape stability and ease of trim.
Unique to
VWT is its ability to integrate with Membrain allowing both upwind and
downwind sail shapes to be analyzed with unprecedented accuracy. |