Section: Application Domains

Performance optimization in water sports

Phenomena encountered in water sports provide challenging modeling and optimization problems. Complex flows are usually considered in this context, including turbulence with strong unsteadiness effects and free surface. These problems can be multi-physic, for instance the simulation of a sail behavior requires to solve a fluid-structure interaction problem. Moreover, from an optimization point of view, a delicate compromise between performance and robustness with respect to the uncertain environment is usually sought. Nevertheless, a significant improvement of the performance can be achieved in this area, for which the use of simulation and optimization methods is just beginning. In this context, we are working with specialists of different disciplines (racing kayak and yachting) to develop specific optimization strategies. In particular, the use of meta-modeling techniques, able to aggregate simulations of different accuracies, is studied, as well as robust optimization formulations to account for uncertainties.