Mechanical design for a new Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate school of Monterey is designing and building a new Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. The new vehicle must use more robust mechanical solutions than the Phoenix version to increase the reliability. Furthermore, the robot should be able to perform mission at a maximal depth of 300 feet. At this depth the pressure will be able to induce hull deflection. This report presents a variety of different steps performed to design a new robot and to solve these mechanical system problems such as: watertight integrity studies; component arrangement in order to calculate the gravity and buoyancy center; hull deflection; propulsion shaft guiding; physical protection for sensors; etc. Finite element simulation has been used to check the hull deflection at test depth and to find a way to increase hull stiffness. This design has been performed using 3D CAD software named I-DEAS. The appendix F presents a simple introduction to this software.