Parametric geometric model and shape optimization of an underwater glider with blended-wing-body

Chunya Sun, Baowei Song, Peng Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

81 Scopus citations

Abstract

Underwater glider, as a new kind of autonomous underwater vehicles, has many merits such as long-range, extended-duration and low costs. The shape of underwater glider is an important factor in determining the hy-drodynamic efficiency. In this paper, a high lift to drag ratio configuration, the Blended-Wing-Body (BWB), is used to design a small civilian under water glider. In the parametric geometric model of the BWB underwater glider, the planform is defined with Bezier curve and linear line, and the section is defined with symmetrical airfoil NACA 0012. Computational investigations are carried out to study the hydrodynamic performance of the glider using the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code Fluent. The Kriging-based genetic algorithm, called Efficient Global Optimization (EGO), is applied to hydrodynamic design optimization. The result demonstrates that the BWB underwater glider has excellent hydrodynamic performance, and the lift to drag ratio of initial design is increased by 7% in the EGO process.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)995-1006
Number of pages12
JournalInternational Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
Volume7
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2015

Keywords

  • Blended-wing-body
  • Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
  • Sensitivity
  • Shape optimization
  • Underwater glider

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