A Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Effect of Control Surface Angle on an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Drag

In this paper the effect of horizontal control surfaces (stern fins) angle on the drag force of the Subsea R&D Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is investigated using both experimental fluids dynamic and numerical fluids dynamic methods. The experiments were conducted in the Subsea R&D towing tank using a 1:1 scale model of the AUV, at various stern angles and in a speed range of 1 to 3 m/s. A pair of Naca shaped struts was used to connect the AUV to the carriage dynamometer. The stern drag force was experimentally calculated at various stern angles and towing speeds. The results obtained by experimental method compared with those obtained numerically by commercial computational fluid dynamics CFX code. Both experimental and numerical results showed that as the stern angle increases, the total AUV drag force increases, and the drag force coefficient can be estimated by a second order polynomial. The results showed that, at a speed of 1.5m/s, as the stern angle increases to 45 degree, the drag coefficient increases up to 174 percent It was also observed that at a specific stern angle, the drag force due to stern fin increases with the AUV speed. Variation of axial force as a function of stern angle was determined by using both experimental and numerical methods. The results obtained by both methods showed that the expensive experiments conducted in towing tanks can be replaced by numerical simulations.