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International classification society Bureau Veritas (BV) has entered into a technical and commercial cooperation agreement with French hydrodynamic specialist HydrOcean.

Under the agreement, HydrOcean will provide advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) services to Bureau Veritas’s shipping and offshore clients, and Bureau Veritas will market HydrOcean’s specialist services worldwide.

Jean-Francois Segretain, Technical Director, Bureau Veritas, said: "HydrOcean’s CFD services save massive amounts of time for ship, offshore structure and marine energy systems designers. For example, hull forms can be optimised by evaluating hundreds of designs over a wide range of load conditions in only a few weeks, and produce ship fuel consumption savings up to 10 or 15 percent."

HydrOcean’s advanced numerical solutions are designed to cost-effectively evaluate and optimize the performance of complex ship hull forms with appendages and propellers, offshore and marine energy units, accounting for non-linear and viscous effects, with a high degree of accuracy compared with model tests. These solutions are being co-developed with the Ecole Centrale Nantes fluid dynamic laboratory, one of the most advanced research teams in marine numerical simulation, which provides HydrOcean with access to an unlimited number of licences used in parallel, thus drastically reducing project costs and time schedules.

“Working with HydrOcean’s powerful tools we are no longer limited to a small number of load conditions when optimising hull forms. New vessels can now be optimized for a complete operational profile, which means genuine energy savings over the entire working cycle of a vessel," commented Segretain.

Erwan Jacquin, HydrOcean CEO, remarked: "HydrOcean is very proud to be associated with Bureau Veritas, with whom we have already undertaken successful projects, providing huge benefits for Bureau Veritas clients. CFD simulation is now extremely accurate, and is being used increasingly in the marine and offshore industries.

"HydrOcean saves costs, reduces design risks and improves vessel performance. We are very happy to add its services to the range of energy-saving measures we can provide to our clients."