Proceedings of the Fourth (1994) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference Osaka, Japan, April 10-15, 1994

Copyright 1994 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers ISBN 1-880653-10-9 (Set); ISBN 1-880653-12-5 (Vol. 11)

Feasibility Study of Laminar Flow Bodies in Fully Turbulent Flow

T. Sarkar, P. G. Sayer and S.M. Fraser University of Strathclyde Glasgow, United Kingdom

One

of

the of

most long An

important range

design

One

of

the of

most a long

important range AUV

design is to

requirements propulsive

autonomous and

objectives

underwater vehicles power.

(AUVs) is to minimize important

minimize its power requirement, which in turn means more payload capacity and/or longer mission capability. One way of achieving this is by careful selection of hull shape. The two conflicting approaches are either to maintain laminar flow over a significant length of the hull or to accept that such a flow is impossible to achieve for a long length of the body due to freestream and turbulence, in service manufacturing degradation. A

relatively easy way of achieving this is by careful selection of hull shape. Two main schools of thought in this respect are If laminar flow can be maintained for a long length of the body, the effective drag can be reduced. It is not possible to maintain laminar flow for a significant length of the body and hull design should be based on turbulent flow conditions. In this paper a feasibility study of laminar flow the designs entire flow is undertaken For
X-35

defects

preliminary study of causes and effects of turbulence shows the latter is likely to occur in practice.

under

the two are

In this paper, after a brief look at the physics of drag reduction techniques through flow control, a feasibility study of laminar flow bodies in fUlly turbulent flow is undertaken. of which
of DTNSRDC)

assumption that flow will be turbulent over length. designs comparison and
F-57

laminar

selected and results are compared with those of two typical torpedo shaped bodies, namely
AFTERBODYl

Four

bodies

are and

selected,
AFTERBODY2

two (AFTERBODYl

and AFTERBODY2

of DTNSRDC.

It has

are typical torpedo

been shown that laminar flow bodies have 1015% higher drag when flow is turbulent over the such entire length. "risk" Hence there in is some hydrodynamic
consideration.

shaped bodies, and the others (X-35 and F57

bodies of Parsons and Goodson) being

laminar flow designs. A proprietary based CFD code, PHOENICS, is used to simulate flow past these bodies. The ability PHOENICS of to simulate such complex flows

involved

adopting further

laminar

bodies

without