Digital twin boosts French racing yacht design
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The summer is a time of messing about in boats for many people, but the Orient Express Racing Team is taking it a step further with a digital twin.
The French Orient Express racing team is using a digital twin from Siemens for its latest racing yacht to improve performance for the upcoming 37th America’s Cup.
The team was founded by sports tech company K-Challenge and brings together some of the best French athletes, engineers, technicians and experts. It is using Siemens Xcelerator software to create a digital twin to simulate hydraulics and aeronautic systems of the yacht in the water.
Working with Siemens’ Simcenter Engineering Services, Orient Express Racing Team is using the digital twin to evaluate the real-world performance of the hydraulic flight and aeronautic systems that control sails and rudder/foil flaps actuation. Digital twins of these systems have been built, parameterized and functionally validated, along with dedicated libraries, that help ensure the layout and interface are comprehensive and easy to operate in a multi-disciplinary team effort spanning the Performance, Mechatronic and Hydraulic groups.
When the team finds that performance is deviating from expectations, data from the water is taken as reference and the engineers introduce modifications in the systems model (for example, to find suspected leaks in the hydraulic systems) to try and match simulation results and data – which allows them to target inspection and maintenance more accurately and efficiently.
Digital twins have been used to model Intel’s semiconductor fabs and the Australian electricity grid, and Siemens has worked with UL on certification of the technology.
“Sailing boats have dramatically changed since the arrival of foil technology enabling them to fly above the water. Managing two fluids and all the new aerospace flying technologies has become a real challenge as the game is completely changed,” said Stephan Kandler, CEO K-Challenge and Orient Express Racing Team. “Digital twins and virtual testing became a major breakthrough to enhance the R&D of the boats besides real sailing. Having Siemens on our side was a key element of K-Challenge Racing & LAB’s strategy in the America’s Cup but also for other developments in the maritime transport decarbonation.”
“The forthcoming race shows how the benefits of digital twins of complex systems can leverage the use of real time data in one of the most competitive sporting environments,” said Jean-Marie Saint-Paul, CEO, Siemens Digital Industries France and CEO, Siemens Digital Industries Software France.
As the team prepares for the race, there is also potential to use the same digital twin-based systems model, already prepared for real-time performance, to be exploited for streaming live data from the race to the models and to compare the response in real time. Additionally, when the boat is not at sea, the systems models are connected to K-Challenge’s virtual-reality simulator. Finally, there is also potential to work control systems control strategy and test multiple scenarios virtually before testing in the water.
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