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Progcraft
Kitebuilder of the Year 2004
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 4967
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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 Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:05 am Post subject: Surfplan - CAD software for traction foil kites |
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Surfplan is a windows CAD (computer assisted drawing) program for designing all sorts of airfoil based flying things.
Mostly though, it's used for traction kites!!
Link:
http://www.surfplan.com.au/sp/downloads/index.htm
Description
Surfplan offers a large (and often times complex) range of options to control the shape and size of kite.
And it includes a wonderfull 3D environment that lets you view your kite from any angle and any zoom level. This is one feature that sets Surfplan way ahead of foilmaker.
Useing any airfoil you choose, or design your own, and you can build anything from high performance buggy engine, to high fly'n LEI kites, to crazy-butt r/c flying wings (yes, that actually does fly despite how ugly it is, yes it has a fully formed airfoil, and yes it was designed completely with surfplan)
Don't be overwhelmed with the sheer number of available options and controls that you'll have at your finger tips. But by exploring each and every option, then checking the kite out in 3D, you'll come to understand how each change affects the overall shape of the canopies.
There are a wide variety of available, and very good, kites on the internet for free that can be built with no modification. Simply open the projects .sle file and then print it out.
By viewing the print preview, you will see the overall layout of each and every part that will be printed. You can choose to print only one piece (ie: a rib), or the whole thing, or anything in between. So, if you mess up while making the actual templates, it's easy to re-print out only what you really need.
For non-commercial, diy home builders that want to build themselves some great traction kites, Surfplan is a very good choice to make.
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- Delos B. McKown
Last edited by Progcraft on Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:41 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Fore Check
Kite and Kitebuilder of the Year 2009
Joined: 15 Jun 2008
Posts: 2658
Location: The Montessori School of Kites (near Findlay, OH)
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| Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 9:27 am Post subject: |
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Before I go and download it and play with it, is it useful for single-line foil design?
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Simon
Discovering Something that Doesn't Exist...
Radix Lecti Rex |
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Progcraft
Kitebuilder of the Year 2004
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 4967
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Fore Check wrote: | | Before I go and download it and play with it, is it useful for single-line foil design? |
Yes, I think you could make single line foil quite easily. But, you may have trouble trying to get flares/keels. I don't think it will do keels for you at all actually.
The bridle settings only have 2 and 4 line, so just set it to 2 line. You can still use only one line though by connecting whatever bridles you make.
I think Emeil actually made a single line foil with Surfplan once. I'll try to find the thread.
T.
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The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike
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Taper123
Joined: 23 Jan 2006
Posts: 256
Location: Near Conroe Texas
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| Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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I think this was the thread where the single line kite was discussed...
Why flowforms like to lean over
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Progcraft
Kitebuilder of the Year 2004
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 4967
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 3:21 am Post subject: |
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A-HA!!
I finally re-found the "Pseudo" Surfplan User Manual
Thanks Taper123. That is the one.
T
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The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike
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Progcraft
Kitebuilder of the Year 2004
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 4967
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 3:30 am Post subject: |
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To help save some work for you if your beginning a search for kite airfoils, check out
Martin Hepperle
From the left menu, click on 'Airfoil Index', then choose MH 91, MH 92, or MH 93.
Quote: "Designed for man carrying paragliders, but can also be used in kites of the Flexifoil™ type,"
Also, check out the EH airfoils. I bet you could make a fast kite with one of those.
All of these airfoils can be downloaded as a .dat file. Save the file to your local drive, then from the Surplan options, open the airfoil as the wing profile/rib shape. Viola.
One more thing.
Basic Design of Flying Wing Models. There is some really good information there about flying wing airfoils, center of gravity, and things called 'neutral point'.
_________________
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The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike
- Delos B. McKown |
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mhartzel
Joined: 09 Dec 2003
Posts: 959
Location: USA, Michigan, Fraser
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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I had designed a 4 line kite using the MH-92 and actually had it analyzed by an aeronautics engineer over on the yahoo kitemakers group. Lemme see if I can find the file. I was going to build it, but ran out of time, then moved...
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Mark
Sand, Street or Sky... I love to fly.
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gaffer
Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 303
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:07 pm Post subject: Re: Surfplan - CAD software for traction foil kites |
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| Progcraft wrote: |
Surfplan offers a large (and often times complex) range of options to control the shape and size of kite.
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When I looked at it, many years ago, it had options to control the shape and size of the kite, but the bridle was calculated from simple geometery. You couldn't do something like "shorten the B line in the primary bridles by 0.3% of the chord" to tune the bridle, which made is essentialy useless. Has this sort of thing been fixed in the intervening years?
Andrew
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Andrew Beattie |
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Progcraft
Kitebuilder of the Year 2004
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 4967
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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You can tune the bridle based on % of chord, but not individual rows like you mention.
I don't think you'd really want to change the length of only one row of bridle lines. There is some basic trigonometry involved that says if you make that shorter, then at least of on other lines, A or C will not need adjustment as well. Think of it as A and C make the legs of a triangle, while B is the height. If you make the height shorter, then at least A or C also HAVE to change. So, tuning the bridle all at once makes much more sense to me.
I don't understand why not doing so would make it 'essentially useless' though I certainly do not think that Surfplan is essentially useless because of that.
Which you care to explain that please Gaffer.
T.
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The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike
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gaffer
Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 303
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| Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Progcraft wrote: |
Which you care to explain that please Gaffer.
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Ok.
Let me start by explaining the way that I think that the bridle calculation works. I'll pretend that the program is a human, for convenience. Please correct me if I'm wrong:
1) Draw a rib profile on paper.
2) Mark (say) 4 bridle points on it.
3) Pick a primary bridle tow-point at some point below the rib.
4) Measure the distance from each of the bridle points to the tow-point.
Those four measurements are the finished measurements of the four bridles on your rib.
Do we agree that this is what the program does?
That is the starting point of the bridle tuning. Next, with experimentation in the field. We may adjust some forward bridles to find the point where luff-resistance is just right. We may pull in some rearward bridles to increase the power. We may let the middle bridles up just as much as we dare to increase the camber.
In a tuned kite, the geometry of the bridle does NOT fit together like the geometry measured lines on paper.
The tune of the bridle is more important than the shape of the rib. My interest is (or at least was, at the time of the development of the Chevron), the develpment and tuning of kites through a sequence of incremental changes. With surfplan as it was back then, the bridle development would have been thrown away with every iteration, rendering it useless for my needs.
Which is a shame, because I wanted to use it.
Andrew
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