Propeller And Rudder Optimum Design Of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

With the development of ocean resource exploitation and military needs, autonomousunderwater vehicles (AUV) technology is being paid more and more attention by countries allover the world. AUVs get their power from various kinds of batteries, whose volume andquality play a role of restriction to endurance and equipment space. To maximize the range,hydrodynamic performance, propulsion efficiency and maneuverability should all beconsidered. Significance of AUV hydrodynamic performance with the help of computationalfluid dynamics (CFD) should be concerned. The following three aspects of works are carriedout in this paper, with respect to optimize performance of propeller and rudder.First of all, propeller design job is done by checking atlas. The optimal propellerdiameter is settled when design speed and propeller rotation rate is known. Strength check iscarried out to make sure selected propeller satisfy strength requirement. Further optimizationwork of propeller parameters, including diameter and pitch ratio is done. Rudder optimization,with stability condition taken as constraint, is also considered to ensure turning diameterrequirement.Secondly, in order to figure out the affection of mesh quantity and turbulence models,hydrodynamic performance of a certain conventional propeller and drag of SUBOFFsubmarine with tail appendage is calculated by CFD. Then the best option is adopted tocalculate selected propeller and submarine.Finally, a double propeller work condition in open water is calculated to study theinfluence between each other and propulsive performance as distance changed. To check outthe influence to AUV hydrodynamic performance when changing arrangement of propellerand rudder, four general arrangement ways are calculated. Drag performance of AUVs with,and without propellers, is simulated in CFD. AUV hull, propellers and rudders then areconsidered together to calculate the drag, hydrodynamic performance and rudder effectiveness.Analysis considering the actual situation is carried out to figure out the best generalarrangement of propellers and rudders. Selected arrangement is further calculated to analyzethe change of propulsive coefficient, torque coefficient when altering distance betweenrudders and propellers.