Flying a Box Kite

​
area of kite (
2
m
)
0.75
wind velocity (m/s)
5
kite mass (kg)
0.5
string length (m)
60
This Demonstration illustrates the flight angle of a cubic box kite and the tension force in the string. The tension and the angle are affected by the lift, drag, surface area of one side of the kite, wind velocity, kite mass and string length. The coefficient of drag is related to the aspect ratio (side A/side B) of the kite, which in this case is kept constant at 1. For simplicity, the coefficient of lift is assumed to be constant; actually its value would need to be found experimentally.

Details

A force balance implies that the sum of the forces is zero, thus drag equals lift:
∑
F
x
=
F
D
-
F
T
cosθ=0
,
∑
F
y
=
F
L
-mg+
F
T
sinθ=0
,
where
F
x
and
F
y
are the forces in the
x
and
y
directions (N),
F
D
is drag (N),
F
T
is tension (N),
F
L
is lift (N),
m
is kite mass (kg) and
g=9.8m/
2
s
, the gravitational constant.
The lift and drag coefficients are:
C
D
=
2
F
D
ρ
2
u
A
,
C
L
=
2
F
L
ρ
2
u
A
,
where
ρ
is air density (
kg
3
m
),
u
is wind velocity (m/s), and
A
is the area of one side of the kite (
2
m
).
In this Demonstration the coefficients of lift and drag
C
L
and
C
D
are assumed constant, which enables calculation of the tension
F
T
in the string using the above equations.

Permanent Citation

Jaeda C. Sichel, Rachael L. Baumann
​
​"Flying a Box Kite"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/FlyingABoxKite/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: May 21, 2014