Comparative Investigation of an Automated Oceanic Wave Surface Glider Robot Influence on Resistance Prediction Using CFD Method

Abstract

Thewave glideris composed of two parts: the float is roughly the size and shape of a surfboard that contains all the instrumentation needed for scientific experiments; the sub has wings and hangs 6 meters below on an umbilical tether. This difference allows wave energy to be harvested to produce forward thrust. According to the lake of design information and data for thewave glider, the main aim of the study is usingcomputational fluid dynamics (CFD)to present a method to predict calm water resistance for the floating part of thewave glider(the hull).Wigley parabolic hulland high speed round bilge form (NPL)have been investigated in order to estimate the hydrodynamic performances of the hull usingCFDsoftware fluent.Wave glideris designed with slender hull shapes in order to decrease the wave making resistance of the ship.In this paper a method is evaluated by comparing the numerical predictions forwigleyandNPLforms (2m) using the same mesh generation method under the same conditions to design the hull. Calculations fortotal calm water resistanceare carried out using three different mesh sizes for Froude numbers in the range of 0.10 to 0.40 and compared for accuracy of the solution parameters. The close agreement between the numerical predictions shows the importance ofCFDapplications in estimating the hydrodynamics performance to design the floating hull and the numerical method is useful in glider design. This means that the method discussed in this paper can be used for the resistance calculation of some hulls like the float of the glider.