Electric Catamaran optimisation in 3 weeks? Challenge accepted!

Yachtwerft Meyer, FRIENDSHIP SYSTEMS and NUMECA just finished the hydrodynamic optimization of an electric catamaran ferry in a joint effort. The time frame was extremely limited, yet several vessel speeds and drafts were investigated and greatly improved new designs were found, adapted to a long endurance operation profile. This work will be presented at the COMPIT ’21, find the conference coordinates and the abstract below.

Date: 9. – 10. August 2021
Location: Mühlheim, Germany

Abstract

The paper presents a design study for an electric catamaran ferry undertaken at the tender stage. Starting from a baseline created to comply with the operational requirements of the future owner, a parametric modeling and hydrodynamic optimization campaign was conducted with the aim of further reducing energy consumption as much as possible, the weight of batteries and the range of a purely electric ferry being of key importance. Due to the short time available in early design, here just three weeks, a partially-parametric modeling approach using Radial Basis Functions was selected. The ferry being relatively short despite considerable displacement when fully loaded and the clearance of the demi-hulls being small, a free-surface RANS code with free trim and sinkage was employed for the hydrodynamic optimizations. The practical approach of modeling and optimization will be explained and illustrated. Results for several displacements at different speeds will be presented, showing the tangible improvement realized within a highly concerted team effort.

Authors

Sven Albert, NUMECA Ingenieurbüro
Erik Bergmann, FRIENDSHIP SYSTEMS
Stefan Harries, FRIENDSHIP SYSTEMS
Thomas Hildebrandt, NUMECA Ingenieurbüro
Massimo Kovacic, Yachtwerft Meyer