Application of the computational fluid dynamics methods to obtain the characteristics of AUV transient responses

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to create the most accurate mathematical model of the underwater vehicle dynamics. In fact, the proposed model should be an alternative to full-scale testing of the device. The paper presents a calculation method that implements coupled calculations of the underwater vehicle dynamics and the hydrodynamics of the fluid, flowing around it. From the point of view of mechanics and hydrodynamics, this approach is the most accurate method for modeling the device dynamics in the presence of arbitrary control actions. The main advantage of the proposed calculation method is the conservative approximation scheme for hydrodynamic calculations, which is extremely important when performing non-stationary calculations. In addition, the proposed method requires less computational resources than other currently used coupled calculations methods. The proposed method was verified on a large data volume received from real autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) field tests and showed high accuracy in reproducing full-scale data. The developed calculation method was used for the designing AUV control system and showed its high efficiency.