Wave Glider is an autonomous surface vehicle that directly uses wave energy to generate forward power and has been widely used in marine survey and observation. Wave Glider is composed of surface vessel, submersible propeller and the connection structure between them. Connection types are thought to be related to the performance of Wave Glider closely. In this paper, the effects of the connection structure between the surface vessel and the submersible propeller on the motion performance of the Wave Glider are studied. Several connection types such as rigid rod, cable, multi-link chain and elastic rod are applied to connect the surface vessel and the submersible propeller. The models of connection structures are developed respectively. Among them, cable model is established with a finite number of small cylinders, which connected by spring and damping elements; multi-link chain can be seen as hinged by multiple rigid rods; elastic rod model can be looked on as several segments linked with elastic components. Considering the connection characteristics, the integrated dynamic models are established by applying multi-body dynamics software ADAMS (Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems) with consideration of the hydrodynamic forces on different components of Wave Glider. The propulsion performance of the Wave Glider is calculated by using numerical method, and the simulation results showed that the difference of propulsion performance with different connection types of the Wave Glider is slightly. But serious impacts can occur on the connections of rigid rod and multi-link chain. They can lead to serious extra load on the structure of Wave Glider. From the engineering practice of Wave Glider application, the cable connection is more convenient to transport, deploy, recover and store. It is also the generous connection type for wave glider.
A wave glider is a novel unmanned marine vehicle which can convert marine energy into kinetic energy. In practice, it is crucial for the wave glider system to deploy into the ocean environment efficiently and safely. Hence, the present work establishes the wave glider motion equations to analyze the deployment method. Firstly, the wave glider model is simplified in the vertical plane and the cable model is defined as mass nodes connected with a massless spring. Then, two typical deployment methods (Method 1 and Method 2) are proposed based on the multibody dynamic method, and the numerical simulation model is established to investigate the kinematic performance of two deployment methods. Lastly, the dynamic characteristic analysis is conducted to select the determined deployment method. We explain the practical advantages of Method 1, which would provide the reference for the deployment method selection.
Wave-powered boat will be affected by the ocean current when moving forward. In order to study the impact of the ocean current on the dynamic performance of wave-powered boat, the fluid-multibody coupled model of the hydrofoil was established in FLUENT through the dynamic mesh method. The hydrodynamic force and moment of the hydrofoil were introduced into the rigid body dynamic equation of the boat, the motion parameters at that time can be calculated by numerical integration to achieve coupling process. The results shows that, with the increase of counter-current velocity, the propulsion velocity of the wave-powered boat and hydrofoil rotation angle both decrease. The results in co-current conditions are more complicated and the rear hydrofoil will be affected by the superposition of the current and the wake vortex falling off from front hydrofoil, causing fluctuations in its rotation process. Beside, the restoring stiffness has an important influence on the propulsion performance of wave-powered boat, so it is necessary to select the appropriate restoring stiffness to improve the propulsion performance of the device under different current velocities.
Wave glider is an unmanned surface vehicle which can directly convert wave energy into forward propulsion and fulfill long-term marine monitoring. Previous study suggested that the wave motion and stiffness of restoring springs mounted on the hydrofoil are main factors affecting the propulsion performance of wave glider. In this paper, the dynamic responses and nonlinear characteristics of underwater propulsion mechanism considering the nonlinear stiffness of restoring springs are investigated based on a fluid-rigid body coupled model. Firstly, the models of propulsion mechanism with different kind of restoring spring are proposed, and the linear and nonlinear characteristics of restoring spring are considered. Then, a fluid-rigid body coupled model of wave glider is developed by coupling the rigid body dynamics model and hydrodynamic model. Dynamic responses are simulated by numerical analysis method and the nonlinear characteristics with different restoring springs are illustrated by time/frequency domain motion response and phase diagram analysis. The effects of wave excitation frequency and wave heights on the propulsion performance of wave glider are analyzed. The results show that, multi-frequency responses occurred in propulsion system. And the study suggests that the nonlinear restoring spring on the hydrofoil can be suitable for different sea condition and better propulsion performance can obtained than linear stiffness spring, which provides a reference for developing propulsion mechanism with high performance in complex marine environment.
With the development of oceanographic research and marine environment protection, mobile marine platforms are applied for ocean observation for a long journey. Wave-powered boats are capable of applying wave motion to propel itself and make a long-duration survey. This paper presents the dynamics of the wave-powered boat under the excitation of the heave motion and pitch motion. Taking the wave-powered boat with double fins as an example, the heave and pitch motions of the boat are obtained by ANSYS-AQWA firstly. Then the relationship between propulsion performance and three factors, including wave height, wave period, and restoring stiffness of torsion spring, was analyzed through multibody dynamics software ADAMS. With the increase of sea state from level 1 to level 4 the average propulsion speed increased from 0.4m/s to 1.4m/s. Under the same wave height and period, with the increase of restoring stiffness of torsion spring from 0.0125N·m/deg to 0.3N·m /deg, the propulsion speed of the wave-powered boat increases first and then decreases, and there exists an optimum stiffness. Through the calculation it is found that when the restoring stiffness of torsional spring is increased from 0.025N·m /deg to 0.2N·m /deg with the sea state level 1 to 4, the wave powered boat has better propulsion performance.
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