Design And Research On Vectorial Waterjet Propulsion Based Underwater Vehicle

Underwater vehicles play a significant role in ocean environment monitoring, ocean resources exploration and military areas. Therefore, the research on underwater vehicles is of great importance. This paper studied the vectorial waterjet propulsion system and designed its structure prototype,which is part of the project"Study on Mechanism of Hybrid Propulsive underwater vehicle Based on Wave Energy"of National Natural Science Foundation of China.(1) A design was proposed to apply the waterjet propulsion on underwater vehicle. Due to the waterjet propulsion, the prominet attachments of the underwater vehicle are much less, which is helpful to decreas water resistance and to conbine sliding propulsion, wave energy propulsion and vectorial waterjet propulsion.(2) The vectorial propulsion was conbined with waterjet propulsion, and the simple structured and reliable vectorial waterjet propulsion was designed. The directionability of waterjet propulsion is better than that of propeller propulsion, and it is much easier to change the direction of the nozzle than to change the direction of the propeller propulsion. Vectiorial waterjet propulsion possesses the advantages of both vectorial propulsion and waterjet propulsion, and improves the performance of underwater vehicle.(3) Based on the small-sized underwater vehicle, the waterjet propulsion using volumetric pump and the following analysis was done. Concerning the characteristics of the volumetric pump, this paper carried out analysis on pipe pressure loss, nozzle size, and flow distribution strategy, which served as theoretical basis for the design of underwater vehicle.(4) The dynamice system modeling of underwater vehicle was built, and the analysis on its underwater dynamic performance and hydrodynamic was carried out. Finallly, a control model was gained.(5) The overall structure and each part of the underwater vehicle were designed. The prototype was made and its vectorial waterjet propulsion performance was tested and analyzed by experiments.