Industrialising fidelity, and finding what convention cannot see

CMDC6 turned validated methodology into an industrial workflow. The result is a staged, automated six degree of freedom CFD process. It runs calm water, self-propulsion, rudder-controlled heading and full wind-loaded balance in sequence, and converges on a force-balanced, course-holding vessel in a single orchestrated run, cutting per-vessel CFD cost by around two-thirds against a bespoke campaign.

Validation held to within 5% of benchmark model scale data for resistance. The rudder controller was tuned offline against an independent mathematical model and presented at the RINA Wind Propulsion Conference in 2025.

The programme also showed why that fidelity matters, by quantifying conditions that conventional methods ignore. A wind-assisted vessel sails with the propeller in angled inflow. Characterising the propeller in that state revealed efficiency effects of up to 8% on a conventional stern and 12% on a podded arrangement. A dead-ahead open water curve cannot see these effects at all, and on the reference vessel they are worth hundreds of tonnes of CO₂ a year.