Performance Analysis of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Alexander Phillips - abp@soton.ac.uk - School of Engineering Sciences Supervisors Dr. S.R. Turnock and Dr. M. Furlong (NOC)

BACKGROUND
This research aims to develop a methodology capable of assessing various aspects of the resistance and manoeuvrability of AUVs using steady and unsteady CFD analysis methods, which balance the trade-off between computational cost and fluid dynamic fidelity. The results of which can be fed into the hull design of the vehicle, its control and propulsion systems and the missions it undertakes. Figure 1 :- Recovering Autosub

HULL PROPELLER RUDDER INTERACTION

The propeller accelerates the flow at the rear of the vessel modifying the flow around the hull and any control surfaces. Thus to accurately model the in service performance of the vehicle the propulsion system must be included in the calculations. Figure 3 :Streamlines representing the flow around Autosub 3

This research will concentrate on running modest computational meshes with the commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX 11. This work concentrates on two aspects:-Identifying the key components of the flow around a manoeuvring submarine and ensuring these features are fully resolved. -Investigating the interaction of the hull propeller and rudders.

FLOW FEATURE IDENTIFICATION

Figure 2 :Automated identification of the extent of the vortex core and wake downstream of a rudder

Explicit transient calculation of the propeller is possible in RANS simulations but is computationally expensive. A suitable representation of the mean flow can be achieved by coupling the RANS simulation with an external Blade Element Momentum (BEM) code. The inflow into the propeller disc is extracted from the RANS simulation and input into the BEM code which calculates the resultant thrust and torque at a specified rpm. The thrust and torque are then implemented as momentum sources within the RANS simulation. This two way coupling allows good prediction of the global forces and moments acting on the vessel

DELPHIN AUV
Is the successor to the successful SotonAUV, which won the Student Autonomous Underwater Challenge Europe 2007. The vehicle was built by 4th year GDP students, and is now operated by a team of post graduate students who use as a test bed for analysing the manoeuvrability of small AUVs, and to provide validation data for numerical models. Figure 4 :DELPHIN AUV

Discrepancies between CFD simulations and experimental results for the forces and moments on a manoeuvring AUV or submarine, observed in this work and by a series of authors, Lee et al.(2005b), Wu et al. (2005), Bellevre et al. (2000) are beloved to be largely a function of poor resolution of hull vortices developed around the hull when operating at an angle of attack. Extensions to the VORTFIND algorithm, Pemberton et al. (2002), and the WakeFind Algorithm, Pashius (2005), are proposed to locate the centre of the vortex and centre of the wake structure downstream.