Effects of Aspect Ratio on the Hydrodynamic Performance of Circular Cambered Otter Board

An otter board is an important device that provides a desired horizontal opening of a trawl net. A high lift coefficient or lift-to-drag ratio is required for an otter board to maintain fishing efficiency. In the present work, the hydrodynamic performance of a circular cambered otter board was studied by numerical simulation, including the effects of aspect ratios (AR), and flow distribution around the otter board. Model tests were conducted in the flume tank as well as a comparison to the numerical results. It showed that simulation results exhibited very good agreement with experiment results. Results demonstrated that the model otter board had a critical angle of attack (AOA) of 50° (when the stall appeared). The maximum lift coefficient and lift-to-drag ratio of the model otter board were 2.421 and 3.719, respectively. However, the maximum values of the full-scale otter board increased first and then decreased with an increasing AR. And the full-scale otter board had a better performance when AR = 2.489, it can enhance the lift coefficient by 17.4% compared with the initial otter board (AR = 1.25). In addition, the flow distribution around the otter board showed that the flow was smooth at small AOAs, when it attacked at large AOA (exceeded 55°), flow separation and eddies were appeared at the lee-side of the otter board.