The brief for the boat, v-39 Albatross is to set a new world outright sailing speed record at Portland Harbor, UK by 2013. The boat is configured to add at least 10 knots to the current record by setting a speed above 65 knots (120 km/h). At speed the boat hulls will fly above the surface using a wing in ground effect. The pilot is able to sail on both port and starboard tack and can actively control the craft in speed, roll and height as well as direction.
Verney Yachts and Capvidia are carrying out transient Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) simulations using Abaqus/Standard coupled with FlowVision-HPC from Capvidia. The objectives of the simulations described in this paper are to capture the above surface aerodynamics of the boat, and to establish overall aerodynamic forces and moments acting on the boat with different control inputs and boat speeds. Each FSI analysis involves capturing the movement of six independently rotating surfaces (four wing-sail surfaces and two outriggers), each surface able to freely weathervane into the local airflow. This process allows the control system to be tuned to minimize control cross coupling and to maximize forward thrust, whilst maintaining roll balance of the overall boat.
The work presented herein is being carried out alongside Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of the free surface hydrodynamics. The data generated will be pulled together into a final series of mathematical models to plot and analyze the forces and moments acting on the boat as the speed increases, mapping the way the boat will behave.