I am a hobbyist and in the process of designing a human-powered hydrofoil (see Hydroped for reference) I'm kind of stuck in the calculation of the the maximum buckling load for a strut.
The strut is modeled as a vertical column with a wing at the lower end and the load at the upper end. My question is: how should I set the end conditions for this problem? I was thinking that the lower part could be considered fixed (the wing), because it's relatively still with respect to the water flow, and the upper part could be considered free. But the wing can actually move around in the water, so it should really be considered free as well?
A next step would be figuring out how to calculate the stress on a strut which has a sweep angle, but I guess the best approach is to take one step at a time...Any help is appreciated!