Design and Optimization of Marine Systems
Ever-increasing environmental regulations, fuel costs, as well as strong competition in the market, demand a very high level of performance in the design of marine systems, with typical goals such as decreasing fuel consumption, reducing operational downtime, and maximizing speed. Modern simulation tools allow the designers a good insight into the performance measures of interest, but can be challenging and time-consuming to employ on a wider scale, especially when performing parameter studies. A proven way to overcome these challenges is automated design exploration and optimization.
Optimization and automated design exploration augment the development process by leading to better and optimized designs, shortening development times and reducing design cycles, as well as increasing the knowledge about the product’s behavior, i.e., the influence of various parameters on its performance, early in the design process, when the freedom for making decisions is largest.
Apart from the aforementioned simulation tools, two crucial components are needed to achieve the desired process automation: a driver of the optimization process with appropriate systematic variation and optimization strategies, and a suitable CAD tool that can reliably produce the different geometry variants that should be analyzed.
CAESES® is a comprehensive software solution for exploring and optimizing complex marine systems. CAESES® bridges the gap between traditional CAD and simulation. It provides intelligent geometry models for robust variation of the shape, and CFD automation to conduct design explorations and optimization. In particular, the focus of CAESES® is simulation-ready and variable CAD.
Why Would I Need an Additional CAD System?
In our experience, the primary bottleneck in setting up and running an automated design exploration or optimization process is related to the handling of geometry:
- Geometry variation with traditional CAD systems or line design tools is often tedious or prone to failure, i.e., some or even many of the variants fail to regenerate when changing parameter values.
- Too many parameters make optimization inefficient.
- It is difficult to consider, or even automatically fulfill, given constraints.
- The quality of the CAD model might not be suitable for simulation (e.g., w.r.t. watertightness, level of detail).
For the most part, CAESES® is a highly specialized CAD system that specifically tackles these problems. It is focused on parametric modeling and variation of complex geometries for design studies and optimization. It provides efficient parameterization methods that offer a high degree of flexibility while using less parameters, comprehensive capabilities for integrating constraints, and simulation-ready exports that require no manual processing.
Marine Design Capabilities
CAESES® comes with an extensive set of capabilities to support the design and optimization of marine systems:
- Comprehensive parametric modeling of hull, appendage, and propulsor geometries based on fully user-defined parameterizations.
- Alternatively, flexible and powerful morphing capabilities for quick but controlled modification of imported geometries (discrete or NURBS based).
- Robust variation with little to no failed variants.
- Full consideration of constraints, e.g., due to stability and arrangement reasons.
- Geometry exports in several different formats suitable for your CFD/meshing tools. Most of the formats support patch naming, so that downstream tools can correctly identify surface patches for the assignment of individual mesh settings or boundary conditions.
- Generic interface to easily connect CAESES® to external simulation and calculation tools (often CFD, but also other disciplines such as stability, structural, etc.).
- Fully-featured optimization environment with a wide selection of DoE and optimization strategies, as well as data management and post-processing capabilities.
- Full scriptability, to easily integrate CAESES® in third-party optimizers or custom workflows.
Marine Applications
Typical applications for CAESES® in marine design are:
- Ship hulls (click for more details)
- Propellers (click for more details)
- Appendages
- Energy saving devices
- Offshore platforms and structures
- Wind, stream or tidal power generation
Who Uses CAESES?
Leading players in the sector, such as shipyards, design offices, towing tanks, and research organizations use CAESES® for the optimization of marine systems. This includes companies like Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries, Sumitomo, Lürssen, Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems, Fincantieri, Naval Group, Kongsberg, Meyer Werft, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, China State Shipbuilding Corporation, HSVA, SSPA, KRISO, DNV, ABS, and Voith.
We have been using CAESES as a geometry tool for optimization of ship hulls and appendages since 2008. The open parametric approach exactly meets our way of working. CAESES combines distinct mathematical CAD with modern handling and appearance. It is easy and intuitive to use, but does also provide full control for all who need it. With its inbuilt feature programming, it even allows us to quickly implement solutions for almost all kinds of additional ideas. CAESES proved to be the best available solution in the market for our services.
Bardo Krebber
Naval Architect and Optimization Specialist
CAESES is a powerful tool to find the best design. The fully-parametric modelling technology helps us break through the limitations of the original design and brings us far more innovation.
He Jiayi
Lead Engineer at MARIC
In our experience, using CAESES for creating parametric models was MUCH faster and easier than with our traditional CAD tool – hours versus weeks! For complex geometries such as ship hulls and propellers, the traditional CAD tool was not the optimal solution because when creating variants we experienced a lot of infeasible geometries, whereas in CAESES we had almost 100% success. At Sirehna, CAESES has become an indispensable tool for conducting comprehensive shape optimization studies in an automated CFD-driven design process.
Pol Muller
Head of Thrusters
CAESES is a core component in the design department, and nowadays, it drives all new product developments to ensure the very best performance.
David Bendl
Development Engineer
If the hull is already optimized using CAESES, it cannot be improved any further.
Cho Tae-Ik
Executive Vice President
Case Studies and Blog Posts for Marine Applications
Questions ?
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have questions in the context of your specific application. We look forward to discussing it together with you!