Grid convergence study in the resistance calculation of a trimaran

As a new type of hull form, trimaran has remarkable excellent performances and has drawn more and more attention. When the viscous CFD technology now available is applied to the research of resistance performance of trimaran, the spatial discretization would usually result in the grid error and uncertainty, and thus the considerable discrepancy between the numerical results and the experimental data. In order to ascertain how much the grid would affect the calculation, the grid convergence should be studied. A mathematical trimaran was chosen as an example, with the commercial code CFX for the simulation, VOF for surface treatment, and the grid study was carried out based on two different turbulence models. It was concluded that carrying out grid study is helpful in estimating the grid error and uncertainty, and indicating the direction of improving the credibility of the numerical calculation, and, in addition to grid errors and uncertainties, the turbulence modeling errors and uncertainties contribute to the simulation errors.     

船体表面矩形块优化敷设设计(英文)

Rectangular tiles can be laid on a ship’s hull for protection, but the sides of the tiles must be adjusted so adjacent tiles will conform to the curvature of the hull. A method for laying tiles along a reference line was proposed, and an allowable range of displacement for the four vertices of the tile was determined. Deformations of each tile on a specific reference line were then obtained. It was found that the least deformation was required when the tiles were laid parallel to a line with the least curvature. After calculating the mean curvature on the surface, the surface was divided into three layout areas. A set of discrete points following the least deformation of the principal curvatures was obtained. A NURBS interpolation curve was then plotted as the reference line for laying tiles. The optimum size of the tiles was obtained, given the allowable maximum deformation condition. This minimized the number of bolts and the amount of stuffing. A typical aft hull section was selected and divided into three layout areas based on the distribution of curvature. The optimum sizes of rectangular tiles were obtained for every layout area and they were then laid on the surface. In this way the layout of the rectangular tiles could be plotted.     

Getting by with a little help from my friends…and family: immigrants and carpooling

While much of the scholarly literature on immigrants’ travel focuses on transit use, the newest arrivals to the United States make over twelve times as many trips by carpool as by transit. Using the 2001 National Household Travel Survey and multinomial logit mode choice models, we examine the determinants of carpooling. In particular, we focus on the likelihood of carpooling among immigrants—carpooling both within and across households. After controlling for relevant determinants of carpooling, we find that immigrants are far more likely to form household carpools than native-born adults and also are more likely than the native-born to form external carpools (outside the household). Moreover, when faced with the options of carpooling and public transit, immigrants—even recent arrivals—appear to prefer carpools over transit more strongly than the native born.     

A numerical approach to trajectory planning for yoyo movement

Based on nonlinear trajectory generation (NTG) software package, a general approach (i.e. numerical solution) to trajectory planning for yoyo motion is presented. For the real-time control of such periodical dynamic system, a critical problem is how to implement fast solving the optimal trajectory, so as to meet the real-time demand. However, traditional numerical solution methods are very time-consuming. In this paper, the optimization problem is solved by mapping the problem to a lower-dimension space. And combined with multithread programming technology, the computation time for solving the optimal trajectory is greatly reduced. Simulation results show that the numerical solution is identical to the analytic one, which demonstrates the correctness of the proposed method. The computation time of one cycle of yoyo simulation is about 10 ms, which shows that the proposed numerical method can be applied to the real-time control of yoyo playing.     

A low-cost testbed of underwater mobile sensing network

Comprised by a swarm of acoustically linked and cooperative autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with onboard sensors, an underwater mobile sensing network (UMSN) will be a complementary means to fixed observatory networks, e.g. seafloor observatory networks and moored buoy arrays. It has obvious advantages over a single large AUV in higher efficiency due to parallel observation, stronger robustness to vehicle failures and lower cost. Although an UMSN can be viewed as a counterpart of wireless mobile sensing networks for air and terrestrial applications, it is much more challenging due to poor performance of underwater acoustic communication, poor performance of underwater positioning and high degree of uncertainty in vehicle dynamics and underwater environment. In order to verify key technologies involved in an UMSN, e.g. cooperation of multi-AUVs based on acoustic communication, a low cost testbed has been developed for experimental study. The design of both hardware and software is introduced. Also the results of a functional test for verification of the effectiveness of the testbed are presented.     

Determining the hydrodynamic forces on a planing hull in steady motion

A combination of methods was developed that can determine hydrodynamic forces on a planing hull in steady motion. Firstly, a potential-based boundary-element method was used to calculate the hydrodynamic pressure, induced resistance and lift. Then the frictional resistance component was determined by the viscous boundary layer theory. Finally, a particular empirical technique was applied, to determine the region of upwash geometry and determine spray resistance. Case studies involving four models of Series 62 planing craft were run. These showed that the suggested method is efficient and capable, with results that are in good agreement with experimental measurements over a wide range of volumetric Froude numbers.     

一种基于模型的水声弱信号检测方法(英文)

Detection of weak underwater signals is an area of general interest in marine engineering. A weak signal detection scheme was developed; it combined nonlinear dynamical reconstruction techniques, radial basis function (RBF) neural networks and an extended Kalman filter (EKF). In this method chaos theory was used to model background noise. Noise was predicted by phase space reconstruction techniques and RBF neural networks in a synergistic manner. In the absence of a signal, prediction error stayed low and became relatively large when the input contained a signal. EKF was used to improve the convergence rate of the RBF neural network. Application of the scheme to different experimental data sets showed that the algorithm can detect signals hidden in strong noise even when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is less than −40d B.     

活塞蓄能器式管路阻尼器的理论与试验研究(英文)

It can be beneficial to reduce vibrations in shipboard piping, so the authors designed a new kind of piping damper with a plunger-type accumulator. Special requirements for the piping damper included low impact displacement, low speed, as well as an appropriate locking speed. Inside the damper, a plunger-type accumulator was installed and on the outside of the piston rod, a tube with exposed corrugations was added. Between the piston and the cylinder, a clearance seal was added. Using mathematical modeling, the effects of the dynamic performance of the damper’s impact displacement on vibrations were observed. Changes to the clearance between the piston and the cylinder, the stiffness of the spring in the accumulator, the throttle valve size, and locking speed resistance of the damper were respectively simulated and studied. Based on the results of the simulation, dampers with optimal parameters were developed and tested with different accumulator spring stiffnesses and different throttles. The simulation and experimental results showed that parameters such as seal clearance between piston and cylinder, accumulator spring stiffness and throttle parameters have significant effects on the damper’s impact displacement, low speed resistance and locking speed.     

水下潜器改进S面控制及控制系统仿真(英文)

S surface controllers have been proven to provide effective motion control for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). However, it is difficult to adjust their control parameters manually. Choosing the optimum parameters for the controller of a particular AUV is a significant challenge. To automate the process, a modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) algorithm was proposed. It was based on immune theory, and used a nonlinear regression strategy for inertia weight to optimize AUV control parameters. A semi-physical simulation system for the AUV was developed as a platform to verify the proposed control method, and its structure was considered. The simulation results indicated that the semi-physical simulation platform was helpful, the optimization algorithm has good local and global searching abilities, and the method can be reliably used for an AUV.     

边界任意弹性约束薄板的横向振动(英文)

This paper presents an analytical study on the influence of edge restraining stiffness on the transverse vibrations of rectangular plate structure. An improved Fourier series method was employed to analyze the transverse vibration of plate structure with general elastically restrained boundary conditions. A linear combination of a double Fourier series and eight auxiliary terms was sought as the admissible function of the flexural displacement of the plate, each term being a combination of a polynomial function and a single cosine series expansion. The auxiliary terms were introduced to ensure and improve the smoothness of the original displacement function and its derivatives at the boundaries. Several numerical examples were given to demonstrate the validity and accuracy of the current solution. The influences of translational and rotational stiffness on the natural frequencies and mode shapes of plate were analyzed by numerical results. The results show that the translational stiffness has bigger influence on the natural frequencies than the rotational stiffness. It is generally well known that little change of the rotational stiffness has little influence on the mode shapes of plate. However, the current work shows that a very little change of rotational stiffness value may lead to a large change of the mode shapes of a square plate structure.