Piri Reis University

Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering

SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

PROPULSION SYSTEMS
Sails are the propulsion systems that use the natural wind energy for moving the ships in water that
are being used for at least 5000 years. Sail propulsion has been the main mode of propulsion of
shipping until the mid-19th country. However, sail-driven merchant vessels, often in small tonnages,
have been used (and are still used in some countries) till World War II era. Sail propulsion is widely
used in sports and leisure boats, and even in some passenger vessels. Sail ships (baroques, schooners,
clippers...) are also preferred as seamanship training in many of the Worlds seafaring countries.

The first sails used until the middle ages depended on the drag force created by the wind and hence
such ships could only sail downwind. However, with the advent of lift-force dependent sails that
should sail across or even close to the direction of the wind had important impacts on mankind-
discoveries of new continents and the development of world trade, colonization of new lands,
together with historical consequences.

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Modern sails depend mainly on the principle of lift creation classical fabric sails, rigid sails, as well
as motor-driven or aspirated cylinder modes of propulsion depend on the creation of a lift force
perpendicular to the direction of the relative wind incident to
the wind.
As is obvious from the figure, the lift should have a forward
thrust component equal to the hull resistance. The existence of
the drift (sway) force is to be met either by the hull itself or by
a deep keel underneath the vessel. The keel, shaped like a
symmetric airfoil, shall also create a lift force to annihilate the
sail drift. A sailboat is often yawed with respect to its course
to create this effect.
Unfortunately, sail-driven vessels are not able to sail when the
wind blows from the bow, (45 degrees port/starboard) since the
lift created is not sufficient to overcome the drag.

The points of sail:

A. in Irons (into the wind)
B. Close Hauled
C. Beam Reach
D. Broad Reach
E. Running

If the vessel is intended to move in the windward direction,

then a zig-zag route should be followed, to get the wind
from the close hauled directions.

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Recent increases in the fuel prices has led people to re-consider this costless mode of propulsion.
However, as should be obvious to the student of this course, the power requirement of a ship for a
given ship speed is proportional to the underwater surface area, which in turn should be proportional
to the length of the ship or the 2/3 rd. power of displacement. Therefore, the sail areas should also be
proportionally increased for higher tonnages. Also, the elimination of drift force requires higher
draughts or deep keels. This usually conflicts with several factors (underkeel draught and air draught
are the most obvious ones). Nevertheless, sail propulsion is now widely studied for merchant ships
of various tonnages, usually for power-augmentation. Extra-human power requirement for the
handling of sails is now deemed to be circumvented by digitally controlled sail systems.

Types of Sails:
1. Fabric sails
2. Rigid sails
3. Parachute-sails
4. Auto-gyros
5. Wind turbines (to produce power to be transmitted to propellers - wind turbine-electric
propulsion)
6. Motor sails (Flettner rotor propulsion)
7. Blown-rotor cylinder propulsion

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Fabric sails
Fabric sails are the classical type of sails. A fabric sail in the
wind can be thought as a zero-thickness airfoil, creating lift
by properly positioning it against the relative wind (Resultant
of ambient wind and the negative ship speed vectors.)

Rigid sails
Rigid sails have symmetrical airfoil sections and are
controllable in direction, to provide the optimum lift.

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Parachute sails
Parachute sails are used in routes where
there is suitable wind and as an assistance
to the main propulsion system.. They are
launched and recovered from a special
mast in the bow. They are mainly drag-
based and make use of the higher wind
velocities at higher altitudes.
Unfortunately, their usage is highly
dependent of wind direction, and can only
be used at certain courses.

In commercial shipping, they are used to augment the thrust force provided by the propeller.
However, their more popular usage is the sports and pleasure sailing.

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Auto-gyros
Auto-gyros are wind turbine-like rotating elements that create favorable lift as they rotate using the
energy of the relative wind. Wind turbines are used for generating electric power that is fed to the
propulsion electric motor. They have the advantage of removing the no-sail zone.

Motor sails
Motor sails (Flettner rotors) operate on Magnus principle,
where a rotating cylinder placed in an air stream creates a
lift perpendicular to the direction of the airstream. It has
the advantage of controllability, at the expense of machine
power required to rotate the cylinder.

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Blown (turbo) rotor sails

Blown-rotors (turbo-sails) are also cylindrical in shape.
They have an air fan at the top, where air is drawn in from
slots on one side of the cylindrical mast and vented out
from the top of the cylinder. By disturbing the symmetry
of flow, they create a lift force, similar to that of the
Flettner rotors.

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 Piri Reis University
Faculty of Maritime Department of Marine Engineering
SM415-Propulsion Engineering
07-Propulsion systems

Captain J.Y. Cousteaus research ship Alcyone