Mechanical Engineering graduate students Jean Toilliez and Grégoire Poupard presented their MS research in the the Northern California Meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineering (SNAME) on March 16, 2004. Their paper entitled "Fast Evaluators for Optimal Multi-Hull Configurations" has been named to receive the national 2004 SNAME Graduate Paper Honor Prize, the top student paper award of the Society. Poupard and Toilliez worked in the Computational Marine Mechanics Laboratory (CMML) of Professor R. W. Yeung (Mechanical Engineering and Ocean Engineering). Their research involved the development of a rapid and accurate model for evaluating how multi-hulls can be configured to minimize wave drag, a component of resistance that inhibits marine vehicles from achieving high speed. Improperly designed, a multi-hull can also generate significant "wake wash" that is harmful to shore and beach lines. Jean and Greg have previously received "Outstanding GSI Awards" twice as GSIs in course ME106. They are the Vice-President and Treasurer, respectively, of the student engineering society: Cal-SNAME. The authors will receive their award plaques and a cash prize in the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Society, to be held in Washington, DC, in late September.

Sample predictions in Poupard and Toilliez's work indicating the power savings resulted from "staggering" a catamaran (red) vs. a conventional catamaran (blue), at a design speed at 10m/s. With the new methodology, typical wave-drag curves for realistic hull forms can be computed in a matter of seconds on a PC.