BENCHMARK April 2020

From Simulation to Reality: The Bloodhound Land Speed Record Car

In the BENCHMARK April 2020 Issue, you will find out about:

It’s the story of a, well, unusual time, I guess. We started off planning for this issue a number of months ago. The theme was to be “Speed”. All things fast – all things quick. Turns out that life can change quicker than anything else.

I know everyone’s saying similar, but it kind of feels weird talking to you as if everything is normal right now. I hope you’re all safe and well, and that this issue of benchmark can, frankly, help provide you with a bit of a distraction from everything else that’s going on right now. So!

Despite everyone’s rather hasty retreat to our home offices, kitchens, spare rooms or hallways that conveniently happened just as we were starting to pull this issue together (it was suggested within the editorial team that this issue be titled “we’re all working from home, so don’t judge us”), we do actually have a couple of articles on the topic we’d planned around –speed. Dr Ben Evans of Swansea University, a long-standing NAFEMS member, has written an excellent article on the work he’s been doing with the Bloodhound Land Speed Record team over the past few years. It’s a great insight into what goes on in these teams, and, well, if the topic is speed then we couldn’t get much faster (on land anyway). We’re on water too with a look at yacht design for the Americas Cup, as well as looking at how quickly predictive digital twins can deliver solutions at the speed required to drive operational decisions (see what we did there?).

We also have an excellent piece on how the impact of business and societal restrictions brought on by COVID-19 will affect the way we do business. This is something NAFEMS has tried to move quickly to address, as you’ll see from our summary of our action plan on page 8. Add to this some interesting reading on wind turbines, slope stability, systems CFD, and you’ve got enough to distract you during your next Zoom meeting. Just remember to put some trousers on if you’re going to stand up on camera.

And this is the part where I usually start to talk about our events, isn’t it? Well, our regional conference programme, which should’ve seen us meeting you all in person in several countries around the world this summer, has been postponed. The exception to that is CAASE20, which we’ve now transitioned into a ‘virtual’ conference, accessible to all, and (wait for it) free for NAFEMS members. Check it out at nafems.org/CAASE20. Hopefully, that will keep you going until we can all meet face to face again at the in-person conferences when they’ve been rescheduled.

This is the time where a community can truly act like one. The NAFEMS team are working hard to transition many of our offline activities online, and also to provide increased opportunities for us all to engage with each other, and stay close, even though we’re all apart. We thank you for your support, and we hope to see you very soon.

David Quinn - Editor