Case Study: AB Structures achieves 10% weight reduction and faster development of Volvo Ocean Race-winning yacht with Altair HyperWorks

HyperWorks Helps to Develop Race-Winning Yacht for Volvo Ocean Race 2009

AB Structures, a specialist in lightweight composite and high-performance metal structural design for yacht racing and aerospace, faced the challenge of delivering a Volvo Open70–compliant, structurally optimized racing yacht within a tight timeframe for the Volvo Ocean Race. To meet stringent weight, keel and safety constraints, AB Structures used Altair’s HyperWorks CAE suite (including OptiStruct) to drive the design and optimization process.

Using Altair’s HyperWorks for full structural and multilayer composite optimization—topology, free-size, ply sizing and stacking-sequence optimization—AB Structures streamlined concept-to-ply design, enabled on-site repair planning, and shortened development cycles. Altair’s tools helped reduce weight on the most critical structural parts by about 10%, contributing to the Ericsson 4’s race-winning performance in the 2009 Volvo Ocean Race.

AB Structures

Fabio Bressan

Managing Director