Modelling and CFD Simulation of a Micro Autonomous Underwater Vehicle SEMBIO

The design of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) is very complex due to high demands of the marine environment such as depth range, endurance, payload, and energy efficiency. The hull design and its hydrodynamic resistance is one of the most important factors directly affecting power requirements and the maneuverability of the vehicle. The minimizing of the hydrodynamic resistance of AUVs leads to high energy efficiency. This paper presents and focuses on the hydrodynamic analysis and fluid flow simulation of the SEMBIO micro AUV using computational fluid dynamic (CFD). The SEMBIO design was mainly inspired by the hydrodynamic features of a guitarfish. To complete the processes of study, SolidWorks software was employed to establish a three-dimensional (3D) model for the CFD simulation, ANSYS Fluent software was used to analyze the SEMBIO model to get comparative data about hydrodynamic properties. Finally, a comparison was carried out between SEMBIO AUV and the more traditional MONSUN AUV design. The results illustrated that hydrodynamic properties and resistance forces of SEMBIO surpassed those of MONSUN.