AERO & HYDRO SERVICES

Leading edge

With over 20 years of experience in numerical simulation applied to automotive, aerospace and yachting including 5 years of intensive development of our tools and methods for America’s Cup projects on the behalf of 4 syndicates, our vision is to restlessly carry on R&D to be on the technology leading edge. Through regular collaborations with universities and leading software developers, we are able to offer services ranging from standard flat water aero and hydro simulations to full transient analysis including simulations with waves and Fluid Structure Interaction.

Fully validated set of Hydro & Aero tools

Today many software packages are available, each covering a part of the yachting engineering needs, from CFD to VPP. The selection of the most efficient combination of tools toward design evaluation is a complex task. Furthermore, available validation material is scarce although needed to develop the methodologies associated with the numerical models development. In the frame of our "Cup" work, we have carefully selected the most suitable tools, we have performed number of towing tank sessions on 1/4 to1/3 scale models (that is 8-9m models!) for the heavy displacement ACC V5 yachts as well as the superlight and overpowered AC90. We have also spent many weeks in twisted flow wind tunnels investigating sails and tuning our aerodynamic simulations. Finally we have worked within the day to day sailing and testing programmes which has helped us refine and tune our VPP models which combine aero and hydro results to predict the performance of the boat.
Beyond Cup work we have worked on several projects, from 12M appendages to maxi multihulls, from IRC cruiser racers sail plans to motor yachts, applying the same level of expertise that we have to use in Cup domain to every single project we have worked on.

A strong set of technological partners

A close partnership with our key software suppliers, CD-ADAPCO and G-Lloyd allow us to request specific developments when necessary. A long term relationship with universities including ‘Université de la Mediterranée’ Fluid Dynamics and Sport Engineering departments has proven invaluable and has helped us stay at the forefront of research and development.

Efficiency

Our goal is to help our clients design better products within a shorter turnaround time while reducing the need for the expense of experimental testing.
Our experience working with large industrial corporations worldwide from detail engineering to full technical coordination allow us to tailor efficiently our services to client’s needs. We have specific prices for each type of simulation or project in order to make sure budgets are spent in the most sensible way, maximizing the benefits for your project.
We perform our simulations on our own computing cluster, using STAR-CCM+, allowing presentation of most results in a turnaround time of less than 24 hours. The use of Friendship System panel code and VPP makes it possible for us to deliver a full assessment of the performance of any yacht.

Our Partners

CD-adapco is the world's largest independent CFD focused CAE provider. Over 7000 users in 3000 companies benefit from its 28 years of experience. CD-adapco products have been used for America’s cup campaigns including BMW ORACLE and LUNA ROSSA as well as Volvo Ocean Race projects such as ABN AMRO & ERICSSON.

Friendship Systems, member of Germanischer Lloyd, provides cutting-edge parametric design methods for systematic investigation and assessment of many hundreds design variants. FS provides advanced VPP and panel codes used by the Auckland Twisted Flow Wind tunnel and in the German America’s Cup syndicates.

A BIT OF HISTORY...

Startup years (1980-1992)

Numerical simulations started to be used in the beginning of the 80s. In these years, reduced hardware capacities only allowed to solve simple problems. It was then realistic to solve 2D structural problems but impossible to tackle most 3D flow problems. Only defence and aerospace industries had access to the required supercomputers. With the raise of vector supercomputers, by 1985, it became possible to use CFD softwares to compute steady state solutions and in the structure domain to tackle dynamic analysis problems. Between 1987 and 1990, we have been involved in the development of CATHARE, a thermal-hydraulic code meant to simulate Nuclear power plants accidents and then joined the RADIOSS development team (dynamic structural analysis and fluid-structure interaction).

Birth of industrial products (1992-2004)

The last decade of the 20th Century saw the spread of supercomputers in the industry and the development of most of the simulation software that are still used as of today. (Structural codes : NASTRAN, ANSYS, RADIOSS and CFD solvers : STAR, FLUENT, CFX…). These software needed the resources of multi-million euro super-computers to solve industrial problems. The most advanced application during that period being the aerospace and auto industries. Regarding CFD applications to yachting, solvers using simplified equations became available (the well known ‘panel codes’). These tools allowed the study of regular flow patterns (upwind sails, smooth hull geometries). In 1995, such software was used by Team New Zealand on SGI parallel servers and workstations. Meanwhile we have carried on developing RADIOSS and working with many industrial users worldwide including Ford and Siemens in the USA, Honda in Japan, Volvo, Opel, Renault and PSA in Europe. We have also performed consulting studies for America True and le Défi Areva (I) on the hydrodynamic side. During the 30th and 31st America’s Cup our aero expert worked with Team New Zealand performing CFD simulations, wind tunnel testing and validation of sails and rig aerodynamics.

Yachting applications (2004-2009)

As CFD software matured, the first decade of the 21st saw a tremendous acceleration of affordable hardware making possible for small and medium companies to use simulation tools which, until then, were reserved to large industrial corporations. Today it is possible on high end PCs to perform simulations that required million euro supercomputers in the year 2000. However the use of these tools can only bring valuable results if they are controlled by highly experienced users. Results otherwise might be aesthetic but not realistic.
Since the year 2004, our activity has shifted almost exclusively to the America’s Cup. Dimitri Nicolopoulos was design coordinator for K-Challenge for the 32nd Cup. Dr Stephen Collie has been in charge of aero simulations for Shosholoza since completing his PhD for Team New Zealand. In late 2007 we both joined the German Team for the 33rd Cup, under the leadership of Jochen Schuemann. Since the team shut down we have set up and performed a full research program sponsored by K-Challenge until the end of 2008. The outcome of our combined efforts is a set of fully validated, predictive numerical models and an in depth understanding of the physics of yacht design. Applying today our tools and methods can help generate competitive advantages for most yachting projects.

10 Key Projects

1987 Member of the development team of CATHARE, French Nuclear Reactors safety code..
1990 Benetton-Ford Formula 1 crash simulation.
1992 First worldwide ‘car to car’ crash simulation for OPEL.
1996 First folded airbag deployment simulations for FORD US.
1997 Fluid Structure Interaction study for America True
2000 CFD aero simulations for Team New Zealand (30th America’s Cup)
2001 Aero acoustic fluid-structure simulations of exhaust lines for HONDA Japan.

2003 CFD aero simulations for Team New Zealand (31st America’s Cup)
2005 CFD hydro for K-Challenge and aero for Shosholoza (32nd America’s Cup)
2008 Extensive aero and hydro validation campaign toward the 33rd America’s Cup.