Topology optimization of a solar-powered boat
Palavras-chave:
Topology Optimization, ship design, boat design, Naval ArchitectureResumo
To reduce climate change effects caused by the marine industry’s uncontrolled emissions, the proposal
of a technique that implements topology optimization to boat design can help boatyards and governments to reduce
CO2 emissions. Boats are responsible for approximately 3% of the world’s total CO2 emissions and making lighter
boats is a great way to reduce this contribution. Until now, the works that use topology optimization do not take
into account some specifications of marine design, such as balance. This work solves the compliance minimization
problem subject to a volume constraint and a new COG (center of gravity) constraint to respect the primary boat
equilibrium project to avoid rework. A reference solar-powered boat is considered as a baseline design. The power
required by the boat is used as a measure of CO2 reduction for comparing the baseline and the optimized designs.
This is done via hydrodynamic analyses before and after optimization.
