The numerical modeling approach of an air-launched AUV impacting into water

摘要

Air-launched AUV can be deployed quickly for the emergency response by the aircraft, so it has already caused broad attention in recent years. During water entry process, the structures and apparatus in AUV are exposed to large impact load, and they may be damaged. After the whole hull is immersed into water, AUV may collide with the ocean floor for the existence of vertical velocity, and it could happen that AUV leaps out of the water literally, so some underwater equipment can't be run normally. For these reasons, the computational fluid dynamics method is proposed to simulate the whole process of AUV water entry in the paper. The volume of fluid(VOF) method and overset mesh technology are used to calculate the pressure distribution and impacting loads, and the effects on the impact force and the trajectory caused by the initial velocity and water entry angle are analyzed detailed. The results can provide some technical guidance for the later design of the air-launched AUV.