Designing a completely new suit for swimmers isn’t so much about going back to the drawing board as it is about going back to the desktop, and the Aqualab. That isn’t some “Bat Cave” secret base for lackluster super hero Aquaman, but it could help competitive swimmers see gold in London in a few weeks. This was also the center of a simulation that helped the designers of the revolutionary Speedo Fastskin Racing System, which utilized the engineering simulation software ANSYS.
When worn together as a complete system, a Fastskin suit, cap and goggle can reduce full-body passive drag by up to 16.6 percent, improve oxygen economy by up to 11 percent (enabling the athlete to swim stronger for longer), and reduce active body drag by up to 5.2 percent. And to help make this possible Speedo looked to ANSYS.
“Engineering simulation has been absolutely critical in launching this world-first concept,” said Tom Waller, head of Speedo’s in-house global research and development facility, Aqualab. “For the first time, competitive swimmers can use a cohesive, hydrodynamic solution that will help them cut through the water with maximum efficiency. In developing the Fastskin Racing System, ANSYS software gave us the confidence that our designs would perform as expected in the real world — and saved us a huge amount of resources that we would otherwise have had to invest in physical testing.”
The Aqualab used data from more than 1,200 separate simulations, and replicated the dynamic pressures of competitive swimming in a risk-free virtual design environment, which the simulators helped minimize the effects of turbulence and drag. Speedo further conducted a number of pool tests with the help of Natalie Coughlin, Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps.
And while we know they can swim, the suits got that far thanks to the Aqualab!