Hydrodynamic interaction study during surface ship overtaking submarine

Abstract

Submarine is easily disturbed by the passing surface ships when submarine sailing near the sea surface, the disturbance can greatly affect the hydrodynamic performance and sailing status of the submarine during navigation. In this study, A model-scale tanker (KVLCC2,LPP = 32m) and a model-scale submarine (SUBOFF,Loa = 6.534m) were used to study the hydrodynamic interaction to the submarine when the surface ship overtakes the submarine sailing below it. An in-house unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solver was applied to the simulation. First, uncertainty analysis of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver was conducted, and validation study based on available experimental data showed good agreement. The hydrodynamic interaction to the submarine during the overtaking process was then investigated numerically with different submarine forward speed, tanker forward speed and different tanker-submarine vertical distance. The results showed that the vertical distance between tanker and submarine has great influence on submarine, the peak values of vertical force and pitching moment of submarine were obviously affected by the forward speed of tanker and submarine, meanwhile, The interaction force on submarine resistance was less effected by submarine forward speed, but the forward speed of tanker was more effected.