Major
Mechanical Engineering
Minor(s)
Math; Physics; General Business
Advisor
Bahram Nassersharif
Date
5-2022
Keywords
Ocean; sea; water; ballasting; AUV; underwater
Abstract
The goal of this project is to ensure that an underwater vehicle can remain neutrally buoyant through varying depths. Additionally, this device must be able to have the ability to have and maintain control through different axes of rotation. As an object like a submarine descends underwater, the environment around the object changes which in turn affects the buoyancy related to the ballasting system. Primarily, as the underwater vehicle descends there will be an increase in pressure to which must be accounted for by the system. Continuously, there will be a slight increase in water density the farther down the vessel descends, however water is not very compressible regardless. The ballasting system in this design will change the quantity of water that is displaced in order to control for the density change of the remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to match with the density of water at the subsequent depth. This dynamic regulation will allow the undersea vehicle to remain neutrally buoyant with limited energy usage from the drive motors. As a result, the AUV will be more energy efficient.
The specifications for this project include having ballast tanks with the ability to take on and remove 1/10 gallons or 0.5 lbs of saltwater or chlorinated water. This module will also be capable of diving to a depth of 14 ft, a parameter set due to the resources available for on-campus underwater testing. In addition, this system will be compact and will be made of noncorrosive and antifouling material such as plastics potentially with embedded nanotechnology. This ballast tank will be able to intake and output the entire volume of water in no less than 10 min while the expected mission length for this system to run is approximately 30 minutes. Overall, this system will be made as space and power-efficient as possible.