Design and Analysis of Submersible Vehicle with Water Jet Propulsion System

The present-days submersible vehicle travel at a maximum speed of 35 knots (65 km/h or 40 mph) and some could attain a short speed burst of 40-45 knots (75-84 km/h or 46-52 mph) while submerged. In order to extract resources available from oceans, seas, etc., or to travel at high speeds at underwater there is a need for the development of high efficient propulsion system and well-designed submersible vehicles which can overcome the underwater drag effects which reduce the speed of the vehicle. This paper aims at developing water jet thruster and a submersible vehicle which can propel at greater speeds by reducing the effects of drag and pressure. The design for such a water jet thruster and a geometric model of submersible vehicle is carried out in Solidworks and analyze using CFD and flow simulation is carried out in Solidworks Flow Simulation. Parameters like drag coefficient, pressure and velocity variations that affect the submersible vehicle and water jet thruster are studied. These parameters are evaluated using FVM and using Cartesian-based CFD meshing.