The Hydrofoil Company maximized their design performance using CFD from SimScale

Hydrofoil Design Challenges

Validating Performance Requirements

With the recreational use of personal hydrofoils steadily increasing from coast to coast, The Hydrofoil Company has been privy to witness the birth of new and exciting aquatic sports; from kite, surf, windsurf, wake and even river hydrofoiling. Yet in the wake of this modern hydro-era, the demands on design and performance for all of these activities have proved to be incredibly challenging.

Within the surf hydrofoil market alone, designs must be extremely efficient at lower speeds, but also must be able to handle quick acceleration and be easily controlled once on the wave. These types of hydrofoils must be responsive as well as stable, which can be a formidable design task.

Alternatively, when designing high-performance racing foils that will experience unpredictable open ocean swells, the hydrofoil designs need to be concerned with glide, pump, and maintaining high average speeds. Racing and downwind hydrofoils must be capable of traveling long distances at record-breaking speeds. In addition to these types of hydrofoils, the other aquatic disciplines also present many challenges and specific requirements that vary widely from one to the next.

The Hydrofoil Company’s Design Process

Online Simulation and Prototype Testing

To keep up with the latest hydro-trends and continue to produce state-of-the-art hydrofoils, The Hydrofoil Company goes through an extensive phase of research and analysis. In order to do this most effectively, designs are modeled and simulated both virtually and through real-life testing. This design-cycle is repeated until the team creates the best iteration that meets the challenging requirements aforementioned.

How They Solved It With SimScale

Analyzing Hydrofoil Behavior Through CFD

Through the incorporation of SimScale into their workflow, the team at The Hydrofoil Company can quickly gather flow analysis data, correct their designs through iterations, and maximize the overall performance of their hydrofoils.

In total, The Hydrofoil Company simulated 76 design iterations over the course of 262 simulation runs. This took them 12,000 hours of CPU core hours. Each run utilized, on average, 64 cores running in parallel. For the team at The Hydrofoil Company, these runs yielded anywhere from 20% to 40% in performance and efficiency improvements.

Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation, the team could quickly draw key insights from hydrofoil behavior under a variety of fluid flow conditions. Due to these insights, CFD from SimScale has become an integral part of the development and validation process at The Hydrofoil Company.

Results & Next Steps

Riding the Waves of Success

For The Hydrofoil Company, the results gained from SimScale have allowed them to design faster than ever before. As they currently hold many downwind course records including the famed Molokai-to-Oahu crossing, their surf hydrofoils are considered some of the best in the industry. Moreover, their team riders continue to push the envelope of what is possible with a hydrofoil.

As a relatively new industry that is still gaining momentum, the future of hydrofoils is much like the ocean; wide-open, and in many respects unknown. The Hydrofoil Company plans to continue its research and development efforts, as well as continue to collaborate with SimScale on its innovative designs. While the team rides the waves of their recent successes, they will never stop pushing the limits of what is possible in this increasingly competitive aquatic playing field.