1. TEMPEST—A New Computationally Efficient Dynamic Stability Prediction Tool

The US Navy has embarked upon the development of a new computational tool for simulating the responses of a ship operating in severe sea states. This new tool, TEMPEST, is designed to be computationally efficient to support real-time training simulators as well as high-resolution evaluation of surface-ship, dynamic-stability performance across a wide range of possible environmental conditions. TEMPEST aims to improve the state-of-the-art for real-time computations through the inclusion of nonlinear (body-exact) hydrodynamic perturbation forces and physics-based, viscosity-influenced lift and cross-flow drag forces. Slender-ship and low-aspect-ratio lifting-surface theories provide the ability to maintain computational efficiency while including the dominant nonlinearities within the dynamic stability problem. This paper argues for the efficacy of TEMPEST’s theory in reconciling the need for accurate predictions with computational efficiency.