Title:	Sailing Dynamics
DNr:	SNIC 2022/5-128
Project Type:	SNIC Medium Compute
Principal Investigator:	Lars Larsson <lars.larsson@chalmers.se>
Affiliation:	Chalmers tekniska högskola
Duration:	2022-03-03 – 2023-04-01
Classification:	20303 20306
Homepage:	https://www.chalmers.se/en/centres/sportstechnology/research/sports/sailing
Keywords:

Abstract

Since 2015 Chalmers is a National Sports University with obligations to carry out research within Sports and Technology. Three areas have been selected: sailing, swimming and equestrian. This proposal is within sailing. To coordinate the work within the area a virtual center: Chalmers Yacht Research Unit (CYRU) has been formed. The center has a web page (URL: see below!) where all projects are listed: finished, ongoing and planned. There are altogether 29 projects on the list. The site also lists all publications within the center. Almost all work within the center is numerical, so large computer resources are required. Recently, the interest in another branch of sailing has boomed: sail-assisted ships. There are many projects underway internationally, and Sweden has a leading role in this development. With the knowledge gained within the CYRU it is natural to move into this area as well. At present there are two PhD students in Sailing Dynamics. Adam Persson has his focus on Olympic sailing and develops a computational technique, where CFD is used for predicting the behaviour of a sailing yacht in 6 degrees of freedom sailing in waves. This is the most accurate technique ever presented, but it calls for massive computer resources. One computation, i.e. one wind speed, one wind direction and one wavelength, takes around 20k core-hours. It is on the limit of being practically useful at present, but will no doubt be the technique of the future. The technique can also be applied to sail-assisted ships, and during the last part of this PhD project the software will be used for this purpose as well. The second PhD student, Karolina Malmek, works entirely within that area. I should mention that I am retired from Chalmers since 2021-01-01, but have a contract with Chalmers as Professor Emeritus. This means that I can continue to use all Chalmers resources for research, supervision and teaching, and I have at present three PhD students (one in another area). My work in the CYRU will be gradually taken over by the researcher Laura Marimon Giovannetti, who is responsible for the small boat sailing research within a project called “Hydro-Aerodynamic Initiative”, sponsored by Chalmers Foundation. In this capacity she will also take over the supervision of MSc and BSc projects.