In September, the 18th Numerical Towing Tank Symposium (NuTTS ’15) took place in Cortona, Italy. Around 60 people attended the conference from various universities, institutes and companies around the world — particularly from Europe and Japan. The University of Southampton was well-represented by five researchers. The annual conference focuses on the development and application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), specifically in the maritime industry.
The key topics this year were overset-mesh techniques, cavitation modelling, acoustic analysis and propeller-hull interactions. There were also interesting presentations on turbulence modelling and free-surface modelling. Some challenging applications were presented: including analysis of fluctuating updrafts above helidecks; drag predictions of dolphin-inspired blubber coatings; and performance analysis of semi-displacement luxury yachts.

Three papers were presented by the FSI group. Joseph Banks presented work on experimental and computational methods for bend-twist coupled foils. Gabriel Weymouth demonstrated real-time, intuitive CFD based on Immersed Boundary methods. Artur Lidtke presented a joint paper with MARIN (Maritime Research Institute Netherlands) on propeller acoustics based on the Ffows Williams-Hawkings equations. The contributions from Southampton were well received and inspired lively conversation.