Hydrodynamic Adsorption Mechanism and Performance Optimization of the Rotating Brush Cleaning System for Underwater Ship Hull Cleaning Robots: A CFD and Experimental Study

Abstract

This study systematically investigates the negative pressure adsorption performance of rotating brush cleaning devices in underwater environments and their key influencing factors through experimental and numerical simulation methods. Aiming at ship hull cleaning requirements, an electrically driven rotating brush device was designed, and its flow field pressure distribution was analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), with experimental validation confirming the reliability of the simulation results. The results demonstrate that the adsorption force exhibits a significant positive correlation with the square of the brush rotation speed (F ∝ ω²), while an optimal gap distance range (5–15 mm) exists for maximizing the adsorption force of wire rope brushes. Moreover, brush geometry significantly influences vortex generation efficiency. Enclosed-vane blade brushes more readily form forced vortices, achieving approximately 5% higher maximum adsorption force compared to nylon and wire rope brushes, though at the cost of substantially increased power consumption. Experimental verification shows that the CFD model effectively predicts adsorption force trends, but simulated values are consistently overestimated by about 15.21%, primarily due to simplified assumptions regarding mechanical vibration and fluid nonlinear effects. This study quantitatively analyzes the dynamic adsorption characteristics of rotating brushes under multiphysics coupling, providing theoretical support for optimizing underwater cleaning robots. Future research directions include adaptive designs for complex curved surfaces and machine learning-based real-time control strategy optimization. The findings contribute to improving ship cleaning efficiency, reducing marine biofouling impacts, and advancing intelligent and sustainable underwater cleaning technologies.

Keywords

Underwater cleaning robot / Hydrodynamic analysis / Vortex flow / Rotating brush / Computational fluid dynamics

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Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature