Study on Structural Performance of the Cylindrical Pressure Hull for Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

The pressure hull is a very important for the overall performance of underwater vehicles, this paper investigates the structural performance of cylindrical pressure hull for underwater vehicles. Taking into account that there are much factors affect the performance of pressure hull, and these factors exists some coupling relationship between each other for pressure hull performance, so the orthogonal design method has been used in this paper, which can establish the representative test program. The ultimate strength of pressure hull is calculated with the finite element method. A design of experiments is performed to evaluate the effect of geometry parameters to the ultimate strength of the pressure hull. Through this study, the designers can clearly understand the influence degree of geometry parameters for pressure hull performance, which can provide reference for the structural design of cylindrical pressure hull.