Engineering news
Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) is to unveil Britain’s latest America’s Cup racing boat, which uses ‘industry-first’ aerodynamic testing by Land Rover engineers to make the boat faster through water and air.
Land Rover’s engineers have worked on the boat’s giant 77ft high wing sail and created software to explore its detailed and dynamic performance. Through the software they have been able to analyse 80 million computational cells in each test, and will seek “definitive results” to help further performance gains.
Tony Harper, director of research at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), said: “This engineering process is similar to processes we use at JLR to assess how our vehicles respond at high speeds. Our aim is to minimise the effect of aerodynamic forces that act to deform parts of the vehicle and to make them more fuel efficient.
“We have been working extremely closely with the design team at the base in Portsmouth and the America’s Cup race boat, known as R1, which will be ready to launch early next year. The engineers are seeing their hard work pay off and as the Cup will be won on those vital few seconds, we anticipate seeing significant performance gains which we believe will ultimately help the team to win in Bermuda.”
Land Rover’s engineers have developed software which analyses the carbon fibre wing in a bid to optimise its performance and make the boat even faster. This software, called Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI), combines aerodynamic testing approaches to increase the performance of the boat’s wing – the catamaran’s main source of power – with structural analysis of its deformation. This has been created because the carbon fibre wing not only needs to withstand strong winds and be crafted from the lightest structures, but also needs to deform to generate acceleration and speed – not drag.
The FSI system processes data from separate software used to analyse the structure of the wing and the airflow around it and combines this information.
One key improvement gained from the analysis so far has been in learning how the Clysar – the film covering the wing – distorts and impacts the boat’s speed due to natural forces. By combining these processes, the team said it is able to gain a deeper understanding of the interaction between the wing’s aerodynamics and structural dynamics to evaluate the new airflow and changes to the wing shape.
Richard Hopkirk, engineering manager at Land Rover BAR, said: “This is complex work in the fine grain of the wing’s performance.
“We expect to see real gains out on the water next summer as a result of this work. With the America’s Cup, we could have the best sailors in the world, but it’s just as much about the design of the final boat which will give us the cutting edge next summer.”
Land Rover BAR head to Fukuoka in Japan for the final America’s Cup World Series event on 19-20 November. They are top of the overall leader board. The event will determine the teams position going into Bermuda next summer.
The America’s Cup race boat, currently known by the code name R1, will be launched in early 2017 in Bermuda, the host of the 35th America’s Cup in May and June 2017.