Design and dynamic study of a ROV with application to oil and gas industries of Persian Gulf

Towed underwater vehicles are essential tools for providing safe access to the underwater world with many applications including ocean research, naval operations, inspection and repair of undersea structures. Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is one of these vehicles which consists of a surface buoy, connecting cable and underwater vehicle. As ROV technologies and capabilities have improved, the offshore oil and gas industry has come to rely on ROVs and they are already involved with every aspect of offshore oil and gas production system installation. Studying of ROVs in Iran seas is an essential feature which is lacking in literature. In the present study, an effort has been made to study a ROV for inspection in oil and gas industries of Persian Gulf. Two commercially available buoys are also examined to find the better towing system with least instabilities in three selected sites of Persian Gulf with different wave climate conditions. The dynamic behavior of this ROV (translational and rotational motions and velocities plus sum of all forces acting on the system) is numerically investigated. After validating the method, it is found that ROV has more instabilities in middle part of Persian Gulf and buoy (2) performs slightly better than buoy (1).