Sweden: FLOWTECH Releases SHIPFLOW 5.0

SHIPFLOW users now have the tools to simulate the viscous free surface and can work within the same environment for the whole hydrodynamic design and optimisation process. FLOWTECH International AB has just come to one of the milestones in SHIPFLOW history – SHIPFLOW 5.0! This latest major release contains new features and improves usability while keeping the structure of the software package intact.

The most important new feature is the addition of Viscous Free Surface to the RANS-solver XCHAP. The viscous free surface is simulated using a volume of fluid Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes method.

This new addition has gone through extensive testing and validations at Flowtech International AB and their testing partners during the past 6 months.

A major update is also the much improved SHIPFLOW Design. This new version of SHIPFLOW Design is based on Friendship Framework 3.0 which is also a new major release. Full post processing within

SHIPFLOW Design is the big news. This means no more switching programs in the middle of the work process. It allows the user to stay within the same user interface for the complete hydrodynamic design and optimisation process.

Other minor developments are for example an even more capable fully automatic iges import which can handle also twinskeg hulls. There is no more need to manually create offsets, just specify what IGES-file to use and SHIPFLOW handles the rest.

FLOWTECH International AB with its product SHIPFLOW is the market leading developer and supplier of Computational Fluid Dynamics software packages for the Marine Industry. The package is designed to streamline the hull form, appendage and propulsion design process with a clear focus on optimisation in order to minimize energy consumption.

SHIPFLOW stems from long term research at FLOWTECH in close cooperation with SSPA and the Department of Shipping and Marine Technology at Chalmers University of Technology. Much of the development has been moved forward by joint projects with SHIPFLOW users and/or European and Nationally financed projects.

The number of licenses has grown steadily since the first version, SHIPFLOW 1.0, was released in 1991. Top shipyards, consultants and universities are among the SHIPFLOW users. Developed by naval architects, physicists and numerical analysts the software is optimised for ship hydrodynamics design. Specialisation means SHIPFLOW is efficient and user-friendly. No general purpose code can compete with SHIPFLOW in hull design: grids are automatically generated, resistance and propulsion data are presented in the naval architect’s way and the solvers are adapted for hull geometries. Over the past twenty years SHIPFLOW has developed into the world standard for ship hydrodynamics CFD.

Since 2007 FLOWTECH has had a close cooperation with Friendship Systems. Friendship Systems Develop and market Friendship Framework which is fully integrated with SHIPFLOW creating a very powerful tool for simulation driven design. SHIPFLOW Design is a subset of Friendship Framework giving the user a complete pre and post processor but missing out on most of the optimisation and CAD tools which are available in the complete Friendship Framework.

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SHIPFLOW, April 22, 2013