Bureau Veritas - Centrale Nantes Chair | LHEEA

In March 2016, Centrale Nantes and Bureau Veritas established an international research chair on ships of the future, in partnership with HydrOcean and Nextflow Software. Centrale Nantes, with its excellent reputation in the field of numerical and experimental hydrodynamics, and Bureau Veritas, a world leader in testing, inspection and certification services for shipping and offshore structures, created this international chair in Hydrodynamics and Marine Structures in order to make significant improvements in the safety and performance of ships of the future.

This ambitious research programme also involves two spin-offs from Centrale Nantes: HydrOcean, key service provider for the evaluation and optimisation of marine and offshore structure performance & Nextflow Software, start-up publisher of fluid mechanics software.

The involvement of these four partners in the chair will foster the emergence of technological innovation with regards to the concept, design and performance of ships and marine structures, environmental protection and safety standards, reduced fuel consumption.

The chair benefits from exceptional resources:

• Centrale Nantes wave tanks, which can simulate the impact of extreme storm conditions (generating the highest waves in Europe) on models.
• Cutting-edge numerical simulation software, developed by Centrale Nantes, Bureau Veritas, HydrOcean and Nextflow
• High performance computing capacity particularly with the Centrale Nantes supercomputer, making possible simulations that were once beyond the reach of the partners.

Research and development will focus on three key areas:

•     Ship safety
•     Interacting bodies and flexible connections
•     Swell performance.

This second experimental campaign conducted in the Hydrodynamic and Ocean Engineering Tank at Centrale Nantes took place between February and April 2021. The tests focused on the behaviour of a containership, modelled at a scale of 1:65.

The objective of these tests was to better understand the characteristics of ship motions & structural responses, but also the non-linear fluid-structure interaction and how this interaction contributes to the ship's structural responses. For this purpose, the container ship was confronted with Regular waves (120deg), Irregular waves (180deg) and Equivalent Design Wave (180deg) reproducing extreme wave conditions.

The analysis of the results of this campaign will allow :

• A better understanding of the three different approaches in wave type
• A reduction of risks associated with the estimation of extreme responses of ship structures in design.