Nous disposons d’un très grand nombre de descriptions historiques des embarcations amérindiennes antillaises. Ces textes constituent une série continue allant du récit des premiers moments aux études ethnologiques sub-contemporaines. Cet article s’appuie sur une recension d’une ampleur inédite des informations contenues dans ces sources espagnoles, hollandaises, anglaises et françaises précoces ainsi que sur les quelques données archéologiques directes disponibles. Nous avons par ce biais tenté de dégager la nature du rapport entretenu par les populations amérindiennes des Antilles avec l’élément marin, mais aussi d’obtenir la description la plus précise possible des différentes embarcations constituant leur flotte et enfin d’établir la chaîne opératoire de construction des kanawa l’un de ces navires spécifiquement conçu et préférentiellement utilisé pour la navigation en haute mer.

Based on a multidisciplinary and configurable modeling approach, this work deals with the optimal choice and the design of a hybrid propulsion with the associated power management strategy to replace a conventional propulsion in a low tonnage river ferry operating on short cycles, with the aim of reducing its environmental impact and the costs over its entire lifetime. The considered ferry is used for the transport of people and vehicles crossing the Seine river, with an installed propulsive power of 330 KW. The operating cycle of the ferry and the energy consumption of its classical propulsion have been determined experimentally and then used as references in simulations for validation and comparison purposes. Two hybrid structures involving the use of batteries and supercapacitors were proposed and compared. It is shown that the hybridization leads to a substantial reduction in CO₂ emissions. The supercapacitor- and battery-based hybrid structures lead respectively to 18% and 29.7% CO₂ reduction compared to classical propulsion, representing, respectively, about 382 and 626 tons of CO₂ reduction over 20 years of operation. Despite the fact that the use of batteries leads to a more significant reduction in CO₂ emissions, the solution using supercapacitors is chosen following a technical-economic study over 20 years of operation.

Devenue plus centrale au cours des dernières années, la question des capacités de navigation des populations amérindiennes n’est pas nouvelle dans l’archéologie antillaise. Nous avons choisi de principalement concentrer nos efforts sur une approche expérimentale de ces techniques. Notre ambition était de mettre en place un programme d’expérimentation prenant en compte les différents aspects liés à la construction et à l’utilisation des kanawa. Nous avons donc mené une étude ethnoarchéologique de la chaîne opératoire de construction des kanawa mise en place par les artisans kali’ña en Guyane française. Puis, une fois produite, la kanawa « Akayouman » a fait l’objet d’une modélisation numérique 3D qui a servi de support à une analyse hydrostatique. Enfin, le cœur du projet a été constitué par la collecte et le traitement des données issues de notre programme de navigation.

Vortex generators have been widely used in aerodynamics to control the separation of boundary layers. In such application (Angele and Muhammad, 2005) vortex generators are embedded in the boundary layer and the vortex height, with regards to the wall, is of the boundary layer thickness. The objective of this configuration is obviously far from being the effects of a single longitudinal vortex (generated upstream by an elliptical plan form profile) on the turbulent boundary layer shape over a Naca0015 symmetric foil at different incidences at high Reynolds number 5 105. The vortex is situated outside the boundary layer (ten times the BL thickness over the wall) taking into account the small value of the thickness in our hydrodynamic application. Obviously, this situation is optimum as the vortex delays separation and increases the maximum lift but introduces drag penalty at small incidence. This is nevertheless frequently encountered in hydrodynamic applications (hub vortex upstream of a rudder) and of interest. To point out the mechanism of the boundary layer manipulation, both global efforts using gauge balance and velocity measurements using LDV and PIV have been performed and compared with and without vortex. The base flow is an APG boundary layer characterized by a predominant wake area. Effect of the vortex is analyzed via the shape factor both in inflow and outflow regions. The longitudinal vortex suppress the hysteretic loop classically described in this Reynolds number range (Djeridi et al., 2009) but an increase of the drag is observed in the range of incidence just before stall. Velocity measurements indicated that, for incidences near the stall appearance, the shape factor is decreased both in the inflow and in the outflow regions. Even for large incidences, in the inflow region the value of the shape factor is equivalent to the one found in the turbulent BL over a flat plate. In this region the vortex modifies the equilibrium state of the BL as attested by the Clauser parameter. Even for large distances between the vortex and the wall, the ability of the vortex to suppress the detachment of the BL is observed on the evolution of the backflow coefficient. This effect is greater pronounced in inflow area near the trailing edge region where the flow is locally reattached due to the high momentum fluid displacement.