Marion James, a FSI PhD student based in our Performance Sports Engineering Laboratory (PSEL) at the University of Southampton while on holiday in the USA last month was pleased to see the outcome of some performance testing undertaken awhile back in the University of Southampton Jubilee Pool. She commented, ‘Speedo USA asked us to drag-test and evaluate the performances of several products to support the training programme of high-level swimmers, and especially sprinters. As a result, two products ‘Dragster’ and ‘Dragtini’ are now available on the US market. They act as a parachute to increase the swimmer’s drag during a training session in order to provide higher intensity training and power-up swimming performances.
PSEL has been looking into swimming drag over the last six years. A recent paper in Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology by  lead author Angus Webb looks at how repeatable techniques are for measuring a swimmer’s resistance when towed passively
 

Progress has gone well since the hand over of the new fluids laboratory building from the main contractors in early March. The passive beach at the east end has been installed along with the active side beaches on the south wall. The components of the main carriage started arriving this morning and should be assembled over the next two weeks.
1st June is scheduled for the start of tank fill with a cautious process with 3000 tonnes of water required. This gives a week for us to prepare demonstrations using the wavemakers for the university open day on the 3rd and 4th July. We are looking forward to showing visitors around as well as making a start on a number of research projects.
We are delighted to announce that our Towing tank manager, Bertrand Malas has now started work and will be delighted to discuss future use of the facility as progressively more of its capabilities become available.

Prof Stephen Turnock and Dr Jon Downes from the Maritime Robotics Lab attended the kick off meeting of the EUH2020 projects BRIDGES in Paris recently. This 4 year, 8Meuro project aims to develop two deep water gliders.
Autonomous underwater gliders use a device, similar to a fish’s swim bladder to alter their buoyancy and  glide on wings either upwards or downward depending on whether they are lighter or heavier than water.  They are very energy efficient and can carry out tasks that last for months and can travel large distances.
A video gives an overview of the project by one of the 19 project partners Armines. The University of Southampton’s work will concentrate on the hydrodynamic design of the external shape of the hull and an auxiliary hybrid propeller for seabed survey at depth. This builds on our expertise in CFD and testing of AUVs such as Delphin2 using wind tunnels and towing tanks.

Professor Ajit Shenoi attended a Lloyds Register Foundation (LRF) workshop on Resilience Engineering held at the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA between 15 and 17 April. The proceedings of the workshop  will inform the policy document for LRF to shape funding calls for their strategic priority on resilience.
LRF is a registered charity in the UK whose mission is “to secure for the benefit of the community high technical standards of design, manufacture, construction, maintenance, operation and performance for the purpose of enhancing the safety of life and property at sea and on land and in the air”.
About 60 people from universities, research institutes, industrial entities, charities and government departments attended this event.

 
The discipline specialisations of the attendees spanned policy/economics, politics, various engineering specialisations (transport, civil infrastructure, offshore, etc.), medicine, environmental and other sciences, etc. The Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI), in partnership with National University of Singapore and University of Western Australia, promoted the case for understanding resilience of the maritime infrastructural system (comprising the physical assets and the people/organisations who work in those environments) and the significant human population that depends crucially on the oceans for food, energy and other essential resources.

Date: Thursday, 30/4/2015
Room: Boldrewood Campus B176 Room 2013
Time: 14:00-15:00
Dr Dmitriy Ponkratov Senior Consultant at LR will be presenting this interesting LR/SMMI
Abstract
Despite of the fact that full scale measurements look like the most realistic, there are a lot uncertainties (hull roughness, wind, waves, current, water depth) which may affect the results. Moreover, they are usually scarce and even when available they are incomplete for validation purposes. Model tests can help to avoid these uncertainties as it is possible to simulate pure calm conditions in towing tank. However, the results can be again not realistic because of the scale effect. CFD has a possibility to calculate ships in full scale avoiding any scaling problems, but the numerical methods should be carefully validated, ideally against full scale measurements. So It can be concluded that only investigations in all three directions can help to better understand the fluid dynamic problems.
Biography
Dr. Dmitriy Ponkratov graduated the Saint-Petersburg State Marine Technical University, Russia in 2005. While writing his PhD thesis in 2006-2008, he was a Consultant to Marine Technology Research Institute in Norway and Ship Scientific Research Centre in China. Prior joining Lloyd’s Register he was an Associate Professor in Norway. Currently he holds the position of Senior Consultant at Lloyd’s Register, Technical Investigation Department, Southampton, UK. He is responsible for managing various Fluid Dynamic projects such as Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) investigations, model tests attendance, sea trials attendance, full scale cavitation observations, under water propeller inspections etc. He is a member of Royal Institution of Naval Architects, member of Technical Committee of International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers and Chartered Engineer.

Two FSI members of staff, Dr’s Nick Townsend and Adam Sobey were present during the filming.  Celsius Tan the Executive Assistant from IHPC – SMMI Joint Lab reports that on the 17^th March 2015, IHPC – SMMI Joint Lab venue was chosen to be part of a short video by A*STAR Corporate Communications to showcase the significance of the marine sector for Singapore’s economy, and the importance of R&D in the shipping industry. A*STAR Corporate Communications notes that the film.
The film will take a narrative approach that is inspired by movie trailers.  This allows us to move quickly through a topic, with sequences which can be highly stylized and exciting. This video will have a slightly grander scope, looking at location shooting in the research labs as well as at a shipyard. 
The following points will be brought into the script mix, adding the educational and emotional content to the story: 

• Singapore is a seafaring nation

• Partnerships and collaborations are important to research

• Rising costs and competition mean that ships will have to be more efficient as well as durable.  At the end of a ship’s lifespan scrapping has great environmental and human cost 

 

• The marine sector is a significant engine of Singapore’s economy.

 
 

PhD student Marion James and Part 2 Ship Science student  Michael Beckett  spent an enjoyable morning with Year 9 pupils at Alton Convent School illustrating some of the  exciting opportunities that engineering presents.  A design challenge based on sports equipment allowed the girls to appreciate quite how complex some of the choices faced by engineers are and the opportunities for creativity and innovation to complement analysis.
Fiona Hopkinson who coordinated the event from the school wrote afterwards
‘Many thanks again for your support in providing two such outstanding ambassadors for Southampton University…  Attending the event were 20 gifted and talented scientists from two local schools, and all of our Year 9 students, 67 pupils in total. Research indicates that the ‘leaky pipeline’ for female scientists becomes apparent at A-level, however the decision has typically been made by 14 – hence the timing and target age group of the event.  Our objective was to make the students aware of the many exciting and diverse opportunities opened by the pursuit of science, and the ability to combine engineering with other passions such as sport.
Your speakers were everything we could have hoped for and more – young, dynamic, fun and personable exceptionally high achievers. Thank you!’
 
We were able to provide support at quite short notice to this IMechE sponsored event during Science Engineering and Technology(SET) week. As a group we welcome approaches from organisations who would like to find out more about ship science, maritime engineering and the many opportunities it presents. We are happy to discuss possible outreach activities, ideally the more interactive the better and especially to groups currently underrepresented in the industry.

Professor Fai Cheng, Head of Strategic Research and Technology Policy, Lloyd’s Register will be presenting on the challenges presented by the Arctic. ALL ARE WELCOME
Synopsis:
Those monitoring the effects of climate change agree that the pace of environmental transformation currently taking place in the Arctic is unprecedented. Such changes provide opportunities for business in areas as diverse as energy extraction, shipping and tourism. But these opportunities will only be fully realised if the businesses involved are able to manage the substantial, and unique, risks which exist in the region. There will be winners and losers as the impacts of climate change continue  to shape the Arctic future. There is significant level of uncertainty about the Arctic‘s future, both technologically, environmentally and economically. The lecture aims to highlight the opportunities and challenges associated with different possible scenarios with particular emphasis on technical challenges.

Second year FSI PhD student Laura Marimon Giovannetti reports on her attendance at the High Performance Yacht Design conference held in Auckland during the Volvo Ocean Race stopover.
The topics of the conference were mainly on sail and wing-sails aerodynamics, foiling and yacht hydrodynamics. Regarding universities researches, the hot topics of the research from the University of Auckland are mainly experimental techniques for downwind sailing aerodynamics and slamming motions. Moreover, a presentation from the Politecnico di Milano was given on sails flying shapes detection. Ecole Navale presented work on strategic decision making in yacht match racing and one on cavitating hydrofoils. The representative from Edinburgh university was not able to come and therefore I was the only representative for the UK HE sector but their main studies are alongside the ones from the University of Auckland on aerodynamics of sails (numerical approaches).
Interesting keynotes were given by Burns Fallow (from North Sails) that explained the development of the AC72 wing and by Paolo Manganelli (ex FSI PhD, now at Gurit) who gave a lecture on the load monitoring system of the VO65.
Not only the conference was extremely interesting, but there was a good mix with the industry visits to Core composites – that builds Oracle – , Southern spars – that builds the rigging of the VO65 – and the University of Auckland) gave me the possibility of understanding the research and development that are performed in the southern hemisphere.
My presentation on passive adaptive composite performance of NACRA foils was followed by very constructive discussions. It also allowed me to mention the University of Southampton’s facilities, from our tests in the R.J. Mitchell wind tunnel as well as the new towing tank!
The Volvo Ocean Race stopover gave me the possibility of interacting with Knut Frostad (the CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race) and to better understand the Team Vestas Wind incident. Finally, given my sailing career, I was fortunate enough to be a guest onboard Team Alvimedica on the practice race, where I have helmed in the final downwind leg!

FSI members presented at the launch of the University Strategic Research Group (USRG) in Autonomous Systems on Friday 20th March. The USRG undertakes work in autonomous systems, sensing, computing, communications and platforms in order to provide world class, cost effective capabilities for scientists and other users. The developed technologies will be employed by society to develop and maintain a low carbon economy, conduct earth science research and other applications from sub-sea, surface, land, air and space.
Presentations were given by Dr Sally Bennett in ‘Autonomous Maritime Platforms – surface and submerged’ discussing the autonomous platforms developed here in Southampton and jointly with the NOC, Dr Gabriel Weymouth in ‘Maritime robotics – getting up close’ discussing the development of persistent energy sources and the potential of soft materials in the future development maritime robotic systems, Ms Cath Holyhead in ‘Autonomous marine sensors for energy scavenging from fixed moorings’ discussing her PhD work, and Dr Jon Downes in ‘Smart Autonomous Ships for safer seas’ discussing the potential uses of autonomy in ships, the potential for autonomous systems for inspection of ship structures, and highlighting the work of the maritime robotics laboratory (www.southampton.ac.uk/maritime-robotics-lab).