Case Study: Navatek achieves validated high-performance hull designs and reduced towing‑tank testing with ANSYS CFX

Navatek - Customer Case Study

Navatek, a Honolulu-based marine hydrodynamics firm specializing in advanced ship hull designs, faced the high cost, time demands and scaling inaccuracies of physical model testing while needing to capture complex transient, transitionally turbulent multiphase flows with a free surface and cavitation. To address this, Navatek turned to ANSYS and its ANSYS CFX solution (with CFX-Mesh) to enable predictive CFD analysis of hull performance and appendage effects.

ANSYS implemented multiphase flow models and automated mesh generation that were validated against towing‑tank experiments with excellent agreement, letting Navatek run rapid what‑if scenarios and optimize appendage placement with high confidence. The ANSYS CFX deployment reduced dependence on expensive towing‑tank tests, accelerated design iteration, and produced hulls that perform better across key metrics — a result Navatek praised for accurate forces and free‑surface predictions.

Navatek

Troy Keipper

Architect