Bryon D. Anderson TUC（布来安安德森职工大会）.pdf

The physics of sailing Bryon D. Anderson Sails and keels, like airplane wings, exploit Bernoulli’s principle. Aerodynamic and hydrodynamic insights help designers create faster sailboats. Bryon Anderson is an experimental nuclear physicist and chairman of the physics department at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. He is also an avocational sailor who lectures and writes about the intersection between physics and sailing. In addition to the recreational pleasure sailing af- side and lower on the downwind side. fords, it involves some interesting physics. Sailing starts with For downwind sailing, with the sail oriented perpen- the force of the wind on the sails. Analyzing that interaction dicular to the wind direction, the pressure increase on the up- yields some results not commonly known to non-sailors. It wind side is greater than the pressure decrease on the down- turns out, for example, that downwind is not the fastest di- wind side. As one turns the boat more and more into the rection for sailing. And there are aerodynamic issues. Sails direction from which the wind is coming, those differences and keels work by providing “lift” from the fluid passing reverse, so that with the wind perpendicular to the motion of around them. So optimizing keel and wing shapes involves the boat, the pressure decrease on the downwind side is wing theory. greater than the pressure increase on the upwind side. For a The resistance experienced by a moving sailboat in- boat sailin