From motorsport to marine: How motorsport innovation is accelerating maritime electrification

Whether it’s a racecar slicing through air or a boat charting open waters, both must move efficiently through fluid, travel from start to finish and endure extreme conditions. This leads to a surprising number of parallels between marine and motorsport.

In fact, these industries are so similar that technology from racing has been transferred to vessels since 2014 ^[1]. Famous Formula 1 engineer, Adrian Newey, partnered with Sir Ben Ainslie to leverage the simulation, modelling, fluid dynamics and composite techniques learned in motorsport for the 35th America’s Cup campaign. It’s no coincidence that other top Formula 1 teams including Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have followed suit and are now all involved in high performance marine projects such as the America’s Cup and the E1 Series.

However, this technology crossover has become even more prevalent over the last few years as the maritime industry shifts towards electrification – a strategy motorsport has been tackling since 2009 ^[2].

The importance of efficiency in marine electric powertrains

Hybrid and electric propulsion systems are gradually being adopted in work boats, leisure craft, ferries and rescue boats. This transition is being driven by the threat of regulations, the need to reduce emissions, the performance potential of new battery technologies and the cost benefits of electricity over fuels.

Discover the role electrification will play in marine

Like all electric powertrains, battery range is a concern, particularly in maritime where regeneration is unavailable and recovering from a depleted battery at sea is far more complex than pulling over at the side of a racetrack.

Consequently, powertrain efficiency is a top priority in marine, an area that aligns closely with motorsport, where maximising every joule of energy can be the difference between winning and losing a race. 

‘One of the challenges with electric boats is there is very little regen - there are no hills to coast down, and as soon as you come off throttle, the boat is already slowing down due to the drag of the hull,’ highlights Peter Trueman, Market Head Off-Highway and Marine at Ricardo. ‘This shifts the focus of the key battery requirement from power density to energy density, making the efficiency innovations in series such as Formula E and Le Mans, where the batteries have to last the entire race, most interesting to marine.’

‘This efficiency is not just about managing the conditions of the battery to keep it in its optimum range to maximise energy output,’ adds Trueman. ‘But also ensuring this energy is used in the most efficient way possible. Every component including the electric motors and the transmission, all need to be optimised to minimise losses and contribute to achieving an overall efficient powertrain package.’

Developing a transmission for Formula E

Reducing drag and lightweighting

The hunt for efficiency does not stop with the powertrain, as there are many other areas of a vessel that can be refined to reduce energy consumption. Arguably the most significant is minimising hydrodynamic drag.

‘Water is around 830 times denser than air ^[3] which means that, at the same speed, the drag force in water is hundreds of times greater than in air,’ explains Stuart Cooper, Market Head at Ricardo. ‘This amplified drag not only requires more power from the batteries to push through, but also creates large turbulent wakes. That’s why, just like in motorsport, boat builders are using CFD tools and wind tunnel equivalent towing tanks to streamline the design of hulls and propellers to be more hydrodynamic.’  

‘There’s a lot of research at the minute going into optimising the hydrodynamics of vessels,’ confirms Trueman. ‘We’re starting to see hydro foiling making a comeback, a system where, as the boat picks up speed, submerged foils sitting beneath the vessel generate lift and lift the high drag hull out of the water, significantly improving the efficiency with which the boat moves over the water. This technology shares many of the fundamental principles found in racecar aerodynamics, it’s just a different fluid.’

Another tactic to cut the energy requirements of the battery pack is lightweighting. By utilising lightweight materials such as carbon fibre composites, the overall mass can be reduced which in turn means fewer cells onboard. This is another area where motorsport can transfer knowledge as the industry has been working with carbon fibre composites since the early 1980s ^[4] and today’s Formula 1 cars are now made up of over 85% composite components ^[5].

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The crossover of reliability between motorsport and marine

There are few environments that are as extreme as a motorsport race, where every component is pushed to its performance limit, sometimes for up to 24 hours. However, marine is one of them, with relentless cyclic loading, shock impacts and vibrations induced by waves combined with constant exposure to salt water, humidity and UV radiation for days at a time. While the threat of debris can damage propellors, shred drive belts and destroy gearboxes.

Despite these brutal conditions, vessels need to be extremely reliable to avoid being stranded in open water. ‘In racing, it’s great to be fast, but as the saying goes, to finish first, you must first finish,’ says Trueman. ‘It’s the same in marine because when you are out at sea, the last thing you want is a failure.’

‘Even back when electronically controlled engines were first introduced into the boating industry there were a myriad of issues around sufficiently isolating electrical connections due to saltwater and salt spray in the air,’ adds Trueman. ‘These problems need to be overcome by designing electric powertrains that are not only durable under normal operating conditions, but in extreme conditions as well.’

Transmission design requirements

This need for components to be energy efficient and reliable demands a precision engineering approach paired with high-quality manufacturing, which is particularly challenging when it comes to transmission design. Transmissions match the output torque of the motors to the input torque of the propeller in electric and hybrid powertrains, with hybrids often utilising power take in gearboxes to switch between the engine and motor depending on the drive mode.

‘The other difficulty is how the powertrain is mounted,’ says Trueman. ‘Prop shafts are usually low down in the hull, so to transfer the torque from the motor or flywheel to the propellor requires a complex arrangement of Z drive or vertical shafts with bevel gears. As the propellor is constantly turning under load, there is a high amount of torque going through the system, so these gears and shafts need to be robust enough to withstand these high torques, whilst minimising heat losses to improve efficiency.’

Achieving performance and reliability whilst maximising efficiency is embedded within the design of Ricardo’s transmissions. The latest Element epicyclic range, originally developed for automotive and motorsport, are well suited to the extreme conditions of marine. Furthermore, these slim cylindrical units are available in low, medium and high torque capacities as well as a wide range of reduction ratios, allowing boat builders to precisely match the speed of the motors operating at their most efficient rpm and propellers for a variety of load profiles.

Learn more about Element for Marine applications

‘In motorsport over recent years, performance has been redefined to focus more on efficiency rather than outright speed,’ concludes Cooper. ‘This efficiency is something Ricardo has been delivering on track for decades, together with a fail fast and iterate faster culture. Transferring this to other industries who are at the beginning of their electrification journey will help accelerate their ability to quickly solve the engineering challenges of adopting hybrid and electric powertrains.’ 

References

^[1] 2014. Adrian Newey gets to realise America's Cup dream in tie-up with Sir Ben Ainslie [Online]. Motorsport.com
^[2] 2022. WATCH: A brief history of the evolution of Formula 1 engines [Online]. Formula 1.
^[3] Pressure and density of air [Online]. Institute of Physics.
^[4] 2023. Strap in, recycled carbon fibre is just the start [Online]. McLaren.
^[5] G.H., 2018. Tech Explained: Carbon Fibre Prepreg [Online]. Racecar Engineering.