On the Performance of a Submergence Research Vehicle

Abstract

The submergence research vehicle has been operated in order to maintain the offshore structure or to detect a vein of ore in deep sea. For that purpose the vehicle has mainly operated with low speed. On the other hand, the ordinary submarine has been operated underwater with relatively high speed. These proper motion characteristics are not the same in point of operation. The characteristics of longitudinal motion of the ordinary submarine has been already presented by many papers. But, for the submergence research vehicle, such studies are not enough so that the authors tried to get the motion characteristics which should be considered at the initial design. Digital simulation of manoeuvring motions and numerical calculation of both static and dynamic stability were carried out on the basis of captive model test. Also, the authors checked the validity of simulation and that of model test by using the scaled model which is able to run underwater freely by the horizontal and vertical thrusters. It is found that the result of computer aided simulation showed a good agreement with that of free running test on the motion characteristics.