CD-adapco Engineer to Participate in Olympic Canoe Races

By DE Editors

One of CD-adapco’s Australian engineers will participate in the men’s canoe single and double events at the London Olympic Games on July 29 and 30.

Engineer Kynan Maley will represent Australia at the games. He trains between 10 and 16 sessions per week, analyzing video afterward to look for ways to improve his form.

“I love slalom canoe/kayak for so many reasons,” Maley said. “There is so much power in the water and the feeling when you are in control and harnessing that power is hard to beat. The competitive side is also a great way to push yourself to your limits and finding ways to improve is incredibly rewarding.”

The typical canoe/kayak slalom typically lasts 90 to 100 seconds and has six red gates that must be negotiated in an upstream direction,  along with 16 green gates that have to be negotiated downstream.

When he’s not racing, Maley is an intelligent CAE engineer. He began working with CD-adapco while still working on his degree, leading to a position as a support engineer in 2009. Currently, he supports and trains STAR-CCM+ users in South East Asia and Australia.

He has run a few STAR-CCM+ kayak simulations using the DFBI and Overset Mesh features, but is working on perfecting the CAD model of his current canoe to get more detailed results. He recently added fins to his canoe to aid the tracking and also help transfer momentum through turns, and once the CAD models are finalized, he plans to use STAR-CCM+  to optimize the fin position and profile. The second phase is then to use Overset meshing to model the hull and paddle within a single DFBI simulation to see how they interact during certain maneuvers.

“Between CD-adapco and whitewater paddling it is fair to say I am a little obsessed with fluids, and I have found there is a lot of common ground between the two,” Maley said. “CD-adapco is already revolutionizing sports like F1, cycling and the Americas Cup, and with the new generation of features I expect to see more sports looking to CFD to optimize time and motion dependent technique and interactions between athletes, equipment and the environment.”

For more information, visit CD-adapco and Maley’s Facebook page.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.