Influence of the Blocking Effect of Circulating Water Channels on Hydrodynamic Coefficient Estimation for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equation was solved using computational fluid dynamics to study the effect of the circulating tank wall on the hydrodynamic coefficient of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Numerical results were compared with the experimental results in the circulating water tank of Harbin Engineering University. The numerical results of the model with different scale ratios under the same water in the flume were studied to investigate the effect of blockage on the hydrodynamic performance of AUV in the circulating flume model test. The results show that the hydrodynamic coefficient is stable with the scale reduction of the model. The influence of blocking effect on AUV is given by combining theoretical calculation with experiment.

Keywords

Hydrodynamic coefficients / Blocking effect / Circulating water channel (CWC) / Model test / Autonomous underwater vehicle