CAESES 5.4 released: extended maritime work­flows and new infra­struc­ture capabilities

With CAESES 5.4, FRIEND­SHIP SYSTEMS delivers the next step in the evo­lu­tion of CAESES, further expand­ing the maritime design func­tion­al­ity intro­duced with CAESES 5.3 while also intro­duc­ing powerful new features that benefit all CAESES users. The new release provides even more flex­i­bil­ity and support for naval archi­tects, as well as improve­ments in geometry modeling, para­me­ter­i­za­tion, and com­pu­ta­tional workflows.

Extended Com­po­nent-Based Ship Modeling Capabilities

CAESES 5.4 con­tin­ues to build on the com­po­nent-based ship hull modeling workflow, further strength­en­ing CAESES as a central tool for para­met­ric ship design and opti­miza­tion. The extended set of com­po­nents allows users to create complex and real­is­tic ship geome­tries in a modular, struc­tured, and fully para­met­ric manner.

Newly added com­po­nents for ship hull modeling include:

• Water­line-based aftship
• Section-based foreship
• Sweeping foreship
• A new F‑Spline version of the water­line-based foreship
• Center skeg for twin-screw vessel configurations
• Rudder com­po­nents, includ­ing full-spade, balanced, and generic rudder types
• Pro­peller com­po­nents, includ­ing actuator disc and generic pro­peller representations

These addi­tions further empower naval archi­tects to effi­ciently model a wide variety of ship types and con­fig­u­ra­tions while main­tain­ing full geo­met­ric control and vari­abil­ity. The com­po­nent-based approach is par­tic­u­larly well suited for rapid model gen­er­a­tion, as well as fol­low­ing design space explo­ration and opti­miza­tion work­flows, where con­sis­tency and robust­ness are essential.

Ded­i­cated Workflow for Hard-Chined and Planning Boat Hulls

In addition to dis­place­ment vessels, CAESES 5.4 intro­duces a new ded­i­cated workflow for hard-chined (planning) boat hulls. The workflow is based on a bare hull com­po­nent and can be extended with optional func­tional elements, including:

• Spray rails
• Pro­peller tunnels

This new workflow provides a clean and effi­cient setup for modeling high-speed craft and planning boats, while fully pre­serv­ing the para­met­ric and asso­cia­tive nature of CAESES models. It allows design­ers to rapidly evaluate vari­a­tions and assess per­for­mance-relevant geo­met­ric changes.

Enhanced Floating Con­di­tions for Hydro­sta­tic Computations

Hydro­sta­tic analyses in CAESES 5.4 have been extended with addi­tional options for defining floating con­di­tions. Users can now specify floating con­di­tions based on:

• A given trim angle and vessel mass
• Draft marks, defined by two lon­gi­tu­di­nal posi­tions and the cor­re­spond­ing drafts at those locations

These new options provide greater flex­i­bil­ity when ana­lyz­ing vessel behavior under dif­fer­ent loading and trim sce­nar­ios, and better reflect real-world use cases commonly encoun­tered in naval archi­tec­ture projects.

Para­met­ric Sample Models for Bench­mark Vessels and Propellers

To support val­i­da­tion, sim­u­la­tion, and opti­miza­tion studies, CAESES 5.4 includes fully para­met­ric sample models of two widely used maritime bench­mark vessels:

• KRISO Con­tainer Ship (KCS)
• KRISO Very Large Crude Carrier (KVLCC2)

Both models are imple­mented using the com­po­nent-based ship hull workflow and yield sim­u­la­tion-ready geome­tries suitable for meshing and CFD analysis. At the same time, the models provide full geo­met­ric vari­abil­ity, making them ideal for opti­miza­tion studies and method development.

In addition, new sample models are provided for a wide range of pro­peller types, includ­ing the well-known Potsdam Pro­peller Test Case (PPTC), further sup­port­ing pro­peller analysis and val­i­da­tion workflows.

Improved Geometry Export for Maritime Applications

CAESES 5.4 intro­duces a new option to export trimmed surfaces using IGES entity 144, as an alter­na­tive to export­ing BReps or assem­blies. This option is par­tic­u­larly helpful when trans­fer­ring ship hull geome­tries to down­stream tools such as NAPA, ensuring a smoother and more robust data exchange.

Advanced Curve Para­me­ter­i­za­tion for Improved Surface Quality

Several new curve para­me­ter­i­za­tion options have been added in CAESES 5.4, giving users more flexible control over the speed of the curve para­me­ter t∈[0,1] along a curve. These options make it possible to:

• Align the para­me­ter­i­za­tion speed of multiple curves to a ref­er­ence curve
• Achieve more con­sis­tent para­me­ter distributions
• Create cleaner surfaces with better-ordered control polygons

These enhance­ments are espe­cially ben­e­fi­cial for high-quality surface modeling and for ensuring robust down­stream oper­a­tions such as meshing and optimization.

Intro­duc­tion of the CTC Server (CAESES Task Controller)

A major new infra­struc­ture feature in CAESES 5.4 is the intro­duc­tion of the CTC Server (CAESES Task Con­troller). The CTC Server is a modular system designed to extend CAESES with advanced job sched­ul­ing and task man­age­ment capabilities.

In its first release stage, CAESES 5.4 includes the Slurm Bridge module, which enables CAESES to interact directly with SLURM (Simple Linux Utility for Resource Man­age­ment). Through this inte­gra­tion, CAESES can:

• Submit jobs to SLURM queues
• Monitor job states
• Cancel or resched­ule running jobs
• Provide job mon­i­tor­ing via a light­weight web interface

This func­tion­al­ity is a key enabler for more scalable, auto­mated, and HPC-oriented sim­u­la­tion workflows.

Numerous Addi­tional Enhance­ments and Usabil­ity Improvements

Beyond the major features, CAESES 5.4 includes many smaller but impact­ful improve­ments across geometry modeling, usabil­ity, and visu­al­iza­tion, such as:

• Custom labels for oper­a­tions, making complex object trees easier to navigate
• Surface cur­va­ture visu­al­iza­tion while inter­ac­tively moving points
• Auto­matic slider creation in the object editor when design vari­ables with bounds are defined
• A new BRep oper­a­tion to color edges or edge sets based on a ref­er­ence point
• A new option to create fillet surfaces with fixed tangent lengths
• A new NURBS surface command to prop­a­gate knots from a neigh­bor­ing surface by raising the degree and insert­ing matching knots
• A new BRep command to check whether a given point is located inside a manifold BRep

Getting Started with CAESES 5.4

CAESES 5.4 is now avail­able and ready to support advanced, sim­u­la­tion-driven design work­flows – from maritime appli­ca­tions to general-purpose para­met­ric geometry modeling.

For further details, please consult the CAESES doc­u­men­ta­tion, the full change log, and explore the new sample models and work­flows included with the release.