Investigation on the Effect of Tail Form on Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Maneuverability

In this paper the effect of tail form on maneuverability of autonomous underwater vehicle is investigated. In the beginning, tail form is defined using a mathematical function dependent on two parameters including length of the tail and its cone angle. Then the effect of these two parameters on the hydrodynamic coefficients and maneuverability is investigated respectively. Hydrodynamic damping coefficients are calculated by applying the numerical simulation of oblique towing and rotating arm tests using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with CFX solver and added mass coefficients are obtained using strip theory method. Due to the different nature of coefficients, using a combination of both these methods has improved the accuracy and speed of calculations. Results show that hydrodynamic damping and added mass coefficients and the turning radius decrease with increasing the tail length, however maneuverability increases. On the contrary, the results are obtained for tail cone angle.