Case Study: SIREHNA achieves improved tidal turbine efficiency and rapid automated design optimization with CAESES

Shape Optimization of a Tidal Stream Turbine using CAESES and STAR-CCM+

Sirehna, the French marine technology expert tasked with designing a tidal stream turbine for OpenHydro, needed a fast, robust way to explore many blade and duct geometries without time-consuming manual CAD repair. They turned to CAESES for parametric geometry modeling and coupled it with STAR-CCM+ for CFD to automate the creation and evaluation of design variants.

CAESES produced a parametric model with 19 design variables to automatically generate hundreds of high‑fidelity geometry variants, which were evaluated in an automated loop with STAR-CCM+ (over 700 designs). The CAESES-driven optimization delivered substantially improved efficiency and torque across a wide operating range; the resulting turbines now form the Paimpol-Bréhat tidal farm, producing 8 MW of power—enough for over 4,000 homes—and CAESES reduced candidate creation from weeks to hours.

Sirehna

Pol Muller

Head of Thrusters