CFD Simulations and Experiments of a Submarine in Turn, Zigzag, and Surfacing Maneuvers

Abstract

We present simulations and experiments of the generic submarine Joubert BB2 performing standard turn, zigzag, and surfacing maneuvers in calm water at depth. The free-sailing experiments, performed at Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN), are unique in that they present an open dataset for the community to benchmark maneuvering prediction methodologies. Computations were performed with explicitly gridded sailplanes, tail planes, and propellers using a dynamic overset technique. This study analyzes a 20-degree turning maneuver with vertical control commanding the stern planes and a 20/20 zigzag maneuver with vertical control commanding both sail and stern planes, both of them at a nominal speed of 10 knots, and a 20-degree rise maneuver with horizontal control at 12 knots. The results show that computational fluid dynamics can predict well motions and speeds for free-sailing conditions, but controller commands are harder to replicate. Computations of the rise maneuver with surfacing compare well with experiments, including a crashback maneuver to stop the submarine. Introduction Simulation of free-running submarine maneuvers is demanding in terms of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capabilities and computational resources. Full 6-DoF motions, moving appendages, control algorithms, and scalable performance are some of the requirements to execute free-running maneuvering simulations. Open literature data for validation of submarine maneuvers are very limited and consist mostly of static conditions (see for instance rotating arm [Toxopeus et al. 2012] and static drift [Roddy 1990; Toxopeus 2008] data for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Suboff and static drift [Quick & Woodyatt 2014] for the Joubert hull form [Joubert 2006]). A new dataset has been recently made available to the research community for the generic submarine model BB2 (Overpelt et al. 2015), based on the Joubert hull form.