Study on the mechanics characteristics of an underwater towing system for recycling an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)

The towing system has a wide range of applications including aircraft launch, aerial refueling, underwater docking, and submarine topography detection. Based on aerial refueling technology, an underwater towing system for recovering an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is designed in this paper, which consists of one steel rod, one cable and one stable wing. First, the mechanical structure of the towing system is introduced and three steel rod models are selected. Next, the stability of the towing system is analyzed, and the numerical simulation software Star-CCM is used to study the influence of different shapes, velocities, and installation angles on the hydrodynamic characteristics of the steel rod. After the force analysis of the steel rod and the cable, the deflection of the steel rod and the vibration of the cable are studied. Through the analysis of the towing system, when the hydrodynamic center point F is located behind the center of gravity G, the towing system is more stable, the drag and lateral force of model c are smaller than that of model a and model b, and the relationship between the drag of the steel rod with the installation angle is obtained. Some other very significant conclusions are also drawn which guide the design of the towing system.