CFD simulation of air flow around a hovercraft

The present article considers the computational fluid dynamics analysis of the steady turbulent flow around a hovercraft body as a first step of a low energy hovercraft design. The aim of the CFD analysis is to optimize the shape of the hovercraft hull and cabin and to obtain the optimum location and size of the lifting fans. Three different shapes (rectangular, semi-circle front with rectangular and triangular front with rectangular) are considered in the first step with the view of simplification of the hovercraft fabrication. The hovercraft cabin is designed for two people and located in the centroid of the hovercraft. The CFD results show that the semi-circular front with rectangular shape has lower drag force for the same flow condition of the other two shapes. It is found that the optimum position for the intake of the lifting fan should be on the inclined front surface near the stagnation point of the hovercraft platform. However, the addition of the windshield by extending the inclined front, leads to the increase of the drag force by 30%.