3D design and simulation methods for the development of wingsuits

A wingsuit is a suit for parachutists and base jumpers, which consists of a jump suit and additional textile surfaces between arms and legs. The aim of the thesis is to accelerate the corresponding development process by means of a digital process chain that includes both geometrical and load-dependent criteria for textile products. Thus, personnel and material costs can be decreased, and the time-consuming prototype process can be re-duced. For this purpose, a parametric CAD model of an aviator wearing a wingsuit is cre-ated. This allows for easy modification of the attitude and geometry of the wingsuit. The flow simulation is performed using a commercial CFD code. Since there are almost no wind tunnel data for wingsuits and simulation results are available only to a very limited extent in the literature, the validation of the methodology for the simulation of the aerody-namic behaviour of flying objects is carried out for a delta wing first. Its design is similar to a wingsuit in terms of geometry and flow behaviour. In addition, extensive data from ex-perimental tests for the validation of boundary conditions, network studies and applied turbulence models are available. The developed modelling approach is transferred to the aerodynamic view of the wingsuit. The resulting digital process chain enables a computer-aided, holistic view of geometric and aeronautical factors influencing aerodynamic param-eters (lift and drag coefficients, glide ratio). Some of the simulation-supported calculations differ significantly from wind tunnel results, but they are comparatively easy to interpret and evaluate with regard to the effects on flight behaviour. The proposed process chain can also be applied to aerodynamic considerations for other high performance sports.