Team French Spirit is already tank testing AC90!

With these tests in the hydrodynamic test centre of the Delegation General pour l'Armement (DGA), Marc Pajot, Bertrand Pacé, Philippe Gouard and Yann Roux, a doctorate in fluid mechanics and coordinator of the Jury, attended on Tuesday, July 8 a new phase in the preparation of tools available to the design jury of Team FRENCH SPIRIT.

This is a high technology phase that is currently taking place in DGA Val de Reuil facility with pool tests of future AC 90. The principle: in order to refine its numerical tools, the Team has made the architectural firm Fauroux in Cannes draw two extreme hulls of the new gauge.

These two models, 7 meters long (at scale) are radically different, one large and one thin. The purpose of observations is not to determine which of the 2 hulls is the most efficient, but to compare the results of pool tests with the result of digital simulation tools. The objective is to implement the best "digital reference grid" for the evaluation of the results of future plans to be submitted by the naval architecture firms currently competing in the contest.

The test pool used for testing is the B600, pelvis traction, 545 m long, 15 m wide, 7m deep which make it is the largest in Europe. The size of the test pool is so important that the curvature of the earth must be taken into consideration when making precise tests. It is in that test pool that are tested all ships of the French Navy.