Optimizing Yacht Performance with IoT: A Case Study on Team New Zealand
Applicable Industries
- Cement
- Marine & Shipping
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
About The Customer
Team New Zealand is a renowned name in the world of competitive yachting. They have achieved consecutive wins in the America’s Cup in 1995 and 2000, becoming the first team from a country outside the United States to win and then defend the America’s Cup. Their success in America’s Cup competitions has significantly contributed to New Zealand’s reputation for producing world-class boat designers and sailors. The team is constantly seeking ways to optimize their performance and maintain their competitive edge in the highly competitive field of yacht racing.
The Challenge
In the competitive world of yachting, particularly in events like the America’s Cup, the smallest changes in geometry can significantly impact the performance of a boat. Team New Zealand (TNZ) was faced with the challenge of optimizing their yacht design without solely relying on physical testing. This was due to the fact that critical flows of air and water, which greatly affect performance, are invisible, making it difficult to understand the reasons behind certain performance levels. Additionally, the traditional yacht design process can be a costly and time-consuming trial-and-error process. Each design iteration often requires the construction of a prototype, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take months to build and test. TNZ designers were tasked with analyzing hundreds of potential designs for the most critical components to extract the maximum performance from their previous generation boats.
The Solution
To overcome these challenges, TNZ turned to technology, specifically ANSYS® CFX®, a high-performance computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Fluid dynamics play a crucial role in yacht design, determining the power generated by the sails and the drag produced by the boat’s hull. Simulating the airflow over a sail is a massive computational challenge. However, TNZ utilized the parallel processing capabilities of CFX to solve a 6 million node model in about 24 hours on a 16-processor Silicon Graphics Origin2000 server. This was a fraction of the time required to build a physical model. The superior turbulence models in ANSYS CFX provided accurate results, enabling the team to visualize flow velocity and pressure magnitudes. This made it possible to improve the design at a much faster rate. The CFX tools also handle multiphase flows readily, capturing the wave detail that other codes don’t.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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