Performance Computing Cluster News

Environmental concerns are influencing a greater need for renewable and sustainable energy across the world with specialist technologies being at the forefront of new designs and solutions. As maritime industries begin to tackle the climate change issues, ports and shipping companies are looking for carbon-free alternatives by testing potential solutions for vessels. The requirement to make a move toward greener shipping is imminent. As companies start to concentrate their efforts in developing efficient solutions for improving performance and reducing emissions…

Robert Allan Ltd. Naval Architects said it will soon multiply its Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) computing power by a factor of six with the purchase of a new dedicated High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. “Needless to say, this represents a major advancement in our processing capability,” said Bart Stock dill who heads the CFD group at Robert Allan Ltd. Indeed, the last four years has seen CFD’s role within the company evolve from basic flow and resistance predictions to highly sophisticated propeller analysis, wake wash studies and predictions for tug escort performance.

Alan C. McClure Associates (ACMA), a naval architecture and engineering firm, announced that the company has recently expanded its analysis capabilities by acquiring a license for STAR CCM+, the flagship CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) package from CD Adapco. This new analysis capability will enable ACMA to determine the effect of viscous flows and non-linear waves on vessel hulls and in internal tanks. ACMA has also purchased a high-performance computing cluster, equivalent to 16 standard desktops to run the new program and accelerated its learning curve by investing heavily in training and running test simulations of past projects. Many of the analyses that ACMA can now perform with CFD were previously analyzed using models tested in a Tow Tank.