Italian Boat Designer ABstructures Extends Usage of HyperWorks

Altair's CAE product family helps to structurally design sailboats for the Volvo Ocean Race and the America's Cup.

TROY, Mich – Altair Engineering, Inc announced today that ABstructures, an Italian structural design company that develops sailboat structures for yachts that participate in the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race, has extended its use of HyperWorks.

ABstructures has been using the HyperWorks suite since its foundation in 2008. The company initially employed OptiStruct, from the HyperWorks suite for topology optimization, along with HyperMesh, the HyperWorks meshing tool. In December 2010, the company extended its use of HyperWorks to RADIOSS, the product suite’s solver, to its development process for the analysis of the behavior of composite materials. Altair’s new agreement with ABstructures includes the rental of 20.000 Grid Works Units (GWUs) for 2011, providing the company with access to every product of the suite, including the use of HyperWorks Partner Alliance (HWPA) products at no additional costs.

In the past, ABstructures applied the HyperWorks suite in the design of the winning Volvo Ocean Race yacht Ericsson 4 as well as the Ericsson 3 yacht. ABstructures is now using HyperWorks to design and optimize three yachts for the forthcoming Volvo Ocean Race and is structurally designing for Artemis Racing, which will participate in the next America’s Cup in 2013 in San Francisco.

To design and optimize the carbon structures of the yachts, ABstructures is using HyperWorks together with other computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools to simulate composites and fluid-structure interactions. ABstructures has achieved fundamental structural improvements of all the yachts it has designed, compared to older-generation yachts. The combination of cutting-edge CAE technology and the extensive hands-on experience of ABstructures’ designers, as well as the close collaboration with Altair Engineering, have enabled the company to deliver the best design for lightweight structural projects.

“I began using HyperWorks in 2003 and have never stopped using it since then,” said Dr. Fabio Bressan, ABstructures. “When I first started to use HyperWorks, I was especially fond of its open platform and the ability to use it with any other available CAE or computer-aided design software. We also like the software suite because it enables us to handle most of the development tasks in structural design within one user interface and because it helps us to easily and quickly understand the challenges of our designs.”

“It immediately gives us the answers we need and therefore helps us drive new ideas and innovation,” adds Dr. Andrea Avaldi, ABstructures. “We particularly appreciate the morphing function within HyperMesh that allows us to change the geometry of our model and have it ready for another simulation run in 10 minutes; without HyperWorks, that would take us probably up to two or three days.”

“Last but not least, we appreciate the good collaboration between our engineers and Altair. The support is outstanding, and we are able to influence future software development by giving Altair our feedback on software enhancements and by testing them,” both designers agree.

“It is always a great pleasure to work with ABstructures,” said Cosimo Pannetta, country manager, Altair Italy. “The company is young and innovative, and the technical exchange between its team and ours is excellent and fruitful for both sides. We are glad ABstructures has decided to extend its use of HyperWorks and are confident that we have the right offering for the company’s needs. On the technical side, HyperWorks opens the possibility for ABstructures to do almost all of its simulation tasks in one software environment. Business-wise, Altair’s patented licensing system offers ABstructures a very flexible usage of all our products, including partner software, at a reasonable price. We are sure that this cooperation will last for many years.”