CFD Simulation of Submarine Escape Suit

In case of an unfortunate event of accident of a submarine, it is required to provide some pressurized suit, which will be used by submariners to escape from the sunken submarine. Before releasing from a depth of 180m, the suit is inflated and its internal pressure is adjusted to match the external hydrostatic pressure at that depth .After release, submariner wearing the suit starts ascending up due to positive buoyancy. The speed of ascend is required to be maintained at around 3m/s to suit human physiology. After reaching a depth of 100m (from surface), the speed is required to be limited to 1m/s. Suit is for individual escape .As these devices are critical to save the lives of users, a lot of prudence has to be exercised in designing the equipment. The objective of this project is to estimate added mass and drag coefficient of suit which may be used to simulate the trajectory of the escape suit. The two parameters chosen to be determined here have considerable importance on the motion of submariner. Whenever acceleration is imposed on the fluid flow either by acceleration of submariner or accelerating externally, additional fluid force will act on the body surface in contact with fluid. These inertial forces are characterized as added mass. The work includes meshing of the flow domain, flow solution and post processing of results. The software used are ANSYS ICEM CFD, ANSYS FLUENT and MATLAB.