Michigan Electric Boat Is Propelling the Naval Industry

The University of Michigan Electric Boat (UM-EB) is a student team that’s designing the next generation of the naval industry. They’re designing, building, and racing electric boats to compete on a national stage, and they’ve committed themselves to innovation. As an electric boat team, they’re looking to decarbonize the marine industry, as it accounts for 6% of global CO2 emissions. That means their boats need to be efficient to get the world closer to zero carbon.

Of course, doing so isn’t exactly smooth sailing. Some of the challenges UM-EB faces are designing and fabricating hydrofoils and propulsion pods for efficiency and high-speed performance, building an electrical system for high peak power output, and assembling a solar array. To overcome these hurdles, however, they’re using Cadence tools to investigate their designs and figure out areas of improvement.

This year, University of Michigan Electric Boat is working on a 17-foot hydrofoiling catamaran. Understanding the flow around the boat is a tough challenge as the boat is constantly balancing different design constraints. The boat needs to be as hydrodynamic and structurally sound as possible, so it’s balancing a number of factors. The OnCloud suite, particularly Cadence CFD tools, including the Fine Marine software, is helping them characterize the flow around the boat in a quantitative manner.

“Designed with Cadence” is a series of videos that showcases creative products and technologies that are accelerating industry innovation using Cadence tools and solutions. Learn more about how University of Michigan Electric Boat is propelling the naval industry with Cadence.

For more Designed with Cadence videos, check out the Cadence website and YouTube channel.