Researchers at Land Rover BAR are hoping that their latest entry for the America’s Cup will have the edge over the competition thanks to a rigorous modelling and simulation programme managed using Siemens Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software.
For almost three years, Siemens’ product lifecycle management (PLM) software business has been helping Land Rover BAR to design, evaluate, verify and produce Britain’s America’s Cup Class (ACC) catamaran. Over 85,000 hours of design and build have resulted in a 15 metre boat that includes 1200 meters of electronic and electrical cabling connecting 190 sensors and four video cameras.
‘Siemens’ software technology has enabled us to simulate, analyse and test design solutions throughout the design and build process,’ said Andy Claughton, chief technology officer of Land Rover BAR. ‘Using this software has saved time and will allow us to continue to make improvements up to the competition, where we hope to bring the Cup home to Britain for the first time in race history.’
Working with Siemens, the Land Rover team successfully managed the ambitious schedule using an integrated software environment for product lifecycle development that enabled multiple disciplines to work together seamlessly. This collaborative environment is crucial for large-scale engineering projects as it allows engineers and designers to modify or optimise designs much earlier in the design process leading to a faster and more accurate solution. The result is a vessel – christened ‘Rita’ today in a ceremony on the island of Bermuda – designed to bring the America's Cup back home to where it all began in 1851.
Land Rover BAR chose solutions from Siemens PLM Software to adopt an integrated virtual environment for digital modelling and simulation. Software products include NX software for product design, Teamcenter software for data management, the Fibersim portfolio of software for composites engineering and the Simcenter software portfolio, including Femap and STAR CCM+, for engineering analysis and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis.
‘We are proud of our partnership with Land Rover BAR and excited to see Rita compete in the 35th America’s Cup,’ said Tony Hemmelgarn, president, and CEO of Siemens PLM software. ‘To be successful, the race requires teams to integrate seamlessly during development, design and continue through testing. Our integrated industry solutions, combined with the expertise of the entire design and racing team from Land Rover BAR and partners, has resulted in an impressive world-class racing boat for the British team.’
