About us

The SVA Potsdam GmbH is an independent shipbuilding research institute with a worldwide customer base. Our company is characterized by flexibility, responsiveness and precision. With more than 60 years of experience at the Potsdam Marquardt location and having roots going back to the Imperial Era, the SVA has successfully served industry and science.

The core of the SVA is the towing tank. Here we have an experimental facility which, with its state of the art linear drive and equipment, allows for the outstanding precision of the experiments. In addition, the cavitation tunnel and friction measurement facilities are available, which underline the main focus of the SVA on propulsion.

The objective of SVA is and always was to be and to remain at the cutting edge of the hydrodynamic development. For this reason, a significant portion of the work of SVA are research projects that benefit all the industry and the economy. Our goal has always been to respond quickly to new challenges in a rapidly changing environment and successfully implement the tasks ahead as efficiently as previously accomplished. The SVA Potsdam GmbH is a non-profit organisation and founding member of the German Industry Research Foundation Konrad Zuse e.V. Furthermore the SVA stands by as partner for the offshore energy and sea mining sectors.

With its three departments, resistance and propulsion, propellers and cavitation, and manoeuvring and waves, the SVA covers the entire spectrum of modern shipbuilding testing practice. Committed employees who are, for the most part, also owners of the company, effectively and flexibly work in collaboration, in the best interest of our clients. The SVA is large enough to meet all the assignments required of us by the shipbuilding and offshore industry and small enough to be fast, flexible and cost effective.