Effect of Free Surface Based on Submergence Depth of Underwater Vehicle

This paper presents the minimum submergence depth of an underwater vehicle that can remove the effect of free surface on the resistance of the underwater vehicle. The total resistance of the underwater vehicle in fully submerged modes comprises only viscous pressure and friction resistances, and no wave resistance should be present, based on the free surface effect. In a model test performed in this study, the resistance is measured in the range of 2 to 10 kn (1.03–5.14 m/s) under depth conditions of 850 mm (2.6D) and 1250 mm (3.8D), respectively, and the residual resistance coefficients are compared. Subsequently, resistance analysis is performed via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to investigate the free surface effect based on various submergence depths. First, the numerical analysis results in the absence of free surface conditions and the model test results are compared to show the tendency of the resistance coefficients and the reliability of the CFD simulation results. Subsequently, numerical analysis results of submergence depth presented in a reference paper are compared with the model test results. These two sets of results confirm that the resistance increased due to the free surface effect as the high speed and depth approach the free surface. Therefore, to identify a fully submerged depth that is not affected by the free surface effect, case studies for various depths are conducted via numerical analysis, and a correlation for the fully submerged depth based on the Froude number of an underwater vehicle is derived.