Análises hidrodinâmica e geométrica, via CFD, do escoamento ao redor de um veículo autônomo submarino.

Abstract

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, or AUVs, make up an advanced class of vehicles, capable of accomplishing pre-established missions, without human intervention. During the last years, research and development of AUVs have been growing, due to their excellent characteristics, which make them ideal for application in military, scientific and industrial sectors. Therefore, this work aims to perform hydrodynamic and geometric analysis of the flow around an AUV, using CFD tools. Finally, a numerical-mathematical model that predicts the flow around an AUV is presented and validated. Is analyzed the influence of control surfaces, velocity and operation depth on the vehicle hydrodynamics, correlations are obtained for the AUV drag coefficient as a function Reynolds number of the flow and the operating depth of the vehicle, besides being evaluated the fluid pressure and velocity fields around the AUV, for different operation depths.