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  1. #6
    Engineer Marm's Avatar
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    Sep 2014
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    Speaking from experience, try other fabrication methods first. I've tried printing trusses for wings before, and entire wing sections. This looks like a NACA0015-ish airfoil?

    Since you're familiar with other shop toys, my first recommendation would be to press punch this design out of CF sheet (or perhaps Aluminum sheet, or Ti sheet if you can get it). Unless one of your laser cutters can do it. If not, a small mill bit on a CNC will do these nicely. You'll be able to mass produce them a lot quicker (a dozen or so per sheet at once vs 1 at a time for a printer) this way. Even if you stack the prints using supports, you'll have a lot of cleanup to do.

    Another option would be to create a mold of this, and then cast it using a strong, yet lite, resin. This truss design makes for a simple mold, and again, could be done in bulk. You would only need a one piece mold.

    But again, reading your specs, it looks like you are making a run of different sizes. I'd just spend a few bucks at the hobby shop, get a nice sheet of 2mm CF, and CNC these out. You could probably get a whole wing section out of one sheet.

    My design was for a land yacht, but also using a wingsail. A variety of issues caused me to scrub the project, but I'm still interested. I went with a NACA0018 airfoil. I liked the deeper angle of attack on it. I do a lot of RC sail boat racing, so I'd like to hear more about this project. Pretty far down the pipeline, I have plans to make a single hull 50" racer based on the Volvo Open 60, with canting keel. And I want to try a trimaran with another shot at a wingsail, but this time with wind gauges mounted on the vessel to gauge apparent wind, and have the servos be controlled be an arduino, so the maximum lift can be applied for any wind angle. Then the throttle control wouldn't be a sail arm, but a true throttle.
    Last edited by Marm; 02-01-2017 at 10:37 AM.

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