Case Study: Grantec Engineering Consultants Inc. achieves improved float stability and reduced drag with ANSYS FSI

Fluid Structure Interaction Helps Design Water Quality Monitor Float

Grantec Engineering Consultants Inc. developed a moored water‑quality monitoring float to carry a vertical sensor and faced the challenge of minimizing drag, ensuring stability and defining mooring specifications under varying currents and waves. To address this, Grantec used ANSYS’s fluid‑structure interaction (FSI) solution (ANSYS Multiphysics with its bi‑directional FSI capability) to model the float, sensor and hydrodynamic loads for an Environment Canada project.

Using ANSYS FSI and the immersed pipe element, Grantec evaluated many hull and mass configurations, discovered the original boom would drive the bow underwater due to current-induced moments, and implemented a hinged sensor mount that eliminated that failure mode. The ANSYS solution also reduced float drag—lowering required mooring strength and cost—enabled faster design iterations, and produced validated performance and stability improvements for the final float design.

Grantec Engineering Consultants Inc.

Richard Grant

President