Thrust Enhancement of Wave-driven Unmanned Surface Vehicle by using Asymmetric Foil
Yan Gao, Lyucheng Xie, Tin Lun Lam
Abstract
In the Wave-driven unmanned surface vehicles (WUSVs), oscillating-foils are the most straightforward and widely used wave energy conversion mechanism. In this paper, a kind of novel asymmetric foil is proposed, which improves the wave energy-converting efficiency to provide a more significant thrust in every wave cycle. We break down the movement of the foils in the wave and build the corresponding kinetic model to analyze their working effectiveness numerically. Through computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, we determine the optimal values of critical parameters of the foils, which are suitable for a wide range of wave conditions. The thrust enhancement of the asymmetric foil is verified in both CFD simulations and hydrodynamic experiments, and the result shows a similar enhancement trend. Comparing with the traditional symmetric foil, our asymmetric foil can provide at least 13.75% more thrust to the WUSVs.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2021_thrustenhancemen,
title = {Thrust Enhancement of Wave-driven Unmanned Surface Vehicle by using Asymmetric Foil},
author = {Yan Gao and Lyucheng Xie and Tin Lun Lam},
booktitle = {ICRA 2021},
year = {2021}
}