Agitation of Complex Fluids in Cylindrical Vessels by Newly Designed Anchor Impellers

The fluid flows and power consumption in a vessel stirred by anchor impellers are investigated in this paper. The case of rheologically complex fluids modeled by the Bingham-Papanastasiou model is considered. New modifications in the design of the classical anchor impeller are introduced. A horizontal blade is added to the standard geometry of the anchor, and the effect of its inclination angle (α) is explored. Four geometrical configurations are realized, namely: α = 0°, 20°, 40°, and 60°. The effects of the number of added horizontal blades, Reynolds number, and Bingham number are also examined. The obtained findings reveal that the most efficient impeller design is that with (case 4) arm blades inclined by 60°.This case allowed the most expansive cavern size with enhanced shearing in the whole vessel volume. The effect of adding second horizontal arm blades (with 60°) gave better hydrodynamic performance only with a slight increase in power consumption. A significant impact of Bingham number (Bn) was observed, where Bn = 5 allowed obtaining the lowest power input and most expansive well-stirred region.

Hydrodynamic Performance of Open-frame Deep Sea Remotely Operated Vehicles Based on Computational Fluid Dynamics Method

The resistance performance and motion stability of deep sea remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) subjected to underwater motion conditions are studied on the basis of the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes method combined with the six-degree-of-freedom equation of motion to quickly and accurately predict them. In the modeling process, we consider the complexity of ROV geometry and thus reduce the model to a series of regular geometries to maximize the position and weight of the original components. The grid and value slots of an ROV are divided, and the surface is reconstructed. The forward, backward, transverse, floating, and submerged resistance of ROVs are simulated and compared with existing experimental forces to determine the accuracy of the calculation method. Then, the oblique navigation of the ROV on the horizontal and vertical planes is studied. Furthermore, the motion response of the ROV to direct horizontal motion, heave, pitch, and yaw are studied. The force, moment, and motion time curves are obtained. The stability of ROV motion is analyzed to provide technical support for the safety of ROVs.

CFD Research on the Hydrodynamic Performance of Submarine Sailing near the Free Surface with Long-Crested Waves

The simulations of submarine sailing near the free surface with long-crested waves have been conducted in this study using an in-house viscous URANS solver with an overset grid approach. First, the verification and validation procedures were performed to evaluate the reliability, with the results showing that the generation of irregular waves is adequately accurate and the results of total resistance are in good agreement with EFD. Next, three different submerged depths ranging from 1.1D to 3.3D were selected and the corresponding conditions of submarine sailing near calm water were simulated, the results of which were then compared with each other to investigate the influence of irregular waves and submerged depths. The simulations of the model near calm water at different submerged depths demonstrated that the free surface will cause increasing resistance, lift, and bow-up moments of the model, and this influence decreases dramatically with greater submerged depths. The results of the irregular wave simulations showed that irregular waves cause considerable fluctuations of hydrodynamic force and moments, and that this influence remains even at a deeper submerged depth, which can complicate the control strategies of the submarine. The response spectrum of hydrodynamic forces and moments showed slight amplitudes in the high-frequency region, and the model showed less sensitivity to high-frequency excitations.

Adaptive obstacle climbing and hydrodynamic performance analyses of the amphibious robot with wheels and flexible undulating fins

In this paper, an amphibious robot with flexible undulating fins and self-adaptive climbing wheels are proposed for satisfying the needs of industrial applications. The structure of the climbing mechanism and undulating fin are firstly designed. Then, the adaptive obstacle climbing and the hydrodynamic characteristics are investigated through numerical simulations by using the Adams and Fluent, respectively. Finally, the experimental measurements of the land walking and underwater propulsion are studied. The numerical results illustrate that the amphibious robot could climb the vertical obstacle adaptively. In the underwater marching pattern, the underwater velocity could reach 1 m/s. In the rotating and yawing patterns, the angular velocity increases to the certain value while the rotating angle keeps increasing. The robot moves forward and turns around with the difference frequency of the undulating fins. The underwater propulsion and land-walking experiments show good swimming performance and the obstacle crossing ability of the amphibious robot, respectively, which verify the numerical simulation.

Design of a Disc-Shaped Autonomous Underwater Helicopter with Stable Fins

The autonomous underwater helicopter, shortly referred to as AUH, is a newly developed underwater platform with a unique disc shape. An autonomous underwater helicopter with a suboptimal disc shape is presented in this paper. It adopts a multirotor configuration and stable fins to overcome the shape shortcoming for motion stabilization. Its motion analysis and mathematical model have been introduced accordingly. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation is carried out to evaluate fins’ hydrodynamic performance. Proportional integral derivative (PID) and sliding mode fuzzy (SMF) control are adopted for controller design. Finally, the controller is applied on this AUH and extensively tested in various simulations and experiments, and the results illustrate the high stabilization and robustness of the controller and the hovering stability and manoeuvrability of AUH.

Study on the Motion Stability of the Autonomous Underwater Helicopter

The hydrodynamic performance of a novel hovering autonomous underwater vehicle, the autonomous underwater helicopter (AUH), with an original disk-shaped hull (HG1) and an improved fore–aft asymmetric hull (HG3), is investigated by means of computational fluid dynamics with the adoption of overlapping mesh method. The hydrodynamic performance of the two hull shapes in surge motion with variation of the angle of attack is compared. The results show that HG3 has less resistance and higher motion stability compared to HG1. With the angle of attack reaching 10 degrees, both HG1 and HG3 achieve the maximum lift-to-drag ratio, which is higher for HG3 compared to HG1. Furthermore, based on the numerical simulation of the plane motion mechanism test (PMM) and according to Routh’s stability criterion, the horizontal movement and vertical movement stability indexes of HG1 and HG3 (GHHG1=1.0, GVHG1=49.7, GHHG2=1.0, GVHG3=2.1) are obtained, which further show that the AUH has better vertical movement stability than the torpedo-shaped AUV. Furthermore, the scale model tail velocity experiment indirectly shows that HG3 has better hydrodynamic performance than HG1.

Numerical Simulation of Dynamic Response of Submerged Floating Tunnel under Regular Wave Conditions

A submerged floating tunnel (SFT) is considered an innovative alternative to conventional bridges and underground or immersed tunnels for passing through deep water. Assessment of hydrodynamic performance of SFT under regular wave loading is one of the important factors in the design of SFT structure. In this paper, a theoretical hydrodynamic model is developed to describe the coupled dynamic response of an SFT and mooring lines under regular waves. In this model, wave-induced hydrodynamic loads are estimated by the Morison equation for a moving object, and the simplified governing differential equation of the tunnel with mooring cables is solved using the fourth-order Runge–Kutta and Adams numerical method. The numerical results are successfully validated by direct comparison against published experimental data. On this basis, the effects of the parameters such as the cable length, buoyancy-weight ratio, wave period, wave steepness, and water/submergence depth on the dynamic response of the SFT under wave loading are studied. The results show that tunnel motions and cable tensions grow with wave height and period and decrease with submergence depth. The resonance of the tunnel will be triggered when the wave period is close to its natural vibration period, and the estimation formula of wave period corresponding to tunnel resonance is proposed in this paper.