David de Prémorel, CEO of finot-conq
Cavitation prediction in high performance sailing, a review of the needs and means of a yacht designer
Competitive sailing today heavily relies on the use of hydrofoils to increase the speed of yachts, both inshore (America's cup for example) and offshore (Vendee Globe's IMOCA monohulls or Ultim Trimarans). These lifting appendages allow to reduce or completely eliminate the drag of the hull(s), but they come with a full set of design challenges. In particular, their size is limited by class rules or by the laws of mechanics, and therefore they often operate at their hydrodynamic and mechanical limits. When trying to optimize foils and to predict the performance of a yacht, the naval architect therefore needs to precisely capture the complete behavior of the foils including fluid-structure interaction, cavitation and ventilation. Several low and high fidelity approaches are currently available, which will be presented with their advantages, drawbacks and limitations. A special focus will be made on the need for simplified cavitation approaches in RANSE CFD-based yacht performance prediction in order to make them suitable for widespread industrial applications.
David de Prémorel
