Virtual planar motion mechanism tests of the autonomous underwater vehicle autosub

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Description/Abstract

Hydrodynamic derivatives are used to model the manoeuvring performance of proposed and existing hull forms. A simple robust method, using unsteady RANS simulations is presented to numerically replicate the experimental PMM tests performed on a scale model of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Autosub. The method uses a body fitted inner domain to capture the unsteady flow. This body fitted mesh moves relative to a fixed outer domain via stretching/compressing cells at the interface. Detailed results for pure sway motion are presented and show good agreement for a relatively low computational cost. It is estimated that at the initial design stage a full set of manoeuvring derivatives could be found for an axis-symmetric AUV or submarine in under two days of simulation time using a desktop pc.