KEYWORDS: Underwater Glider, Spiral Path, Turning Motion
Underwater gliders are a class of autonomous underwater vehicles that move in water without standard screw propeller based thrusters. The gliders use change in buoyancy in conjunction with hydrodynamic forces produced by wings and hulls for propulsion. This leads to two characteristic maneuvers one of them being a turning motion that leads to the vehicle executing a spiral path. The dynamics of the turning spiral path is of interest to this research. A literature review is undertaken to identify gap areas. Thereafter, a dynamics model has been developed and validated with available published experimental
results. A sensitivity analysis of the turning motion on the hydrodynamic coefficients of the glider is undertaken to identify critical HDCs to turn motion. A candidate glider is analysed experimentally to establish the nature of the flow across the hull. Then CFD methodology is validated with the results of experiments. The solver methodology is then
used for estimating the Hydrodynamic coefficients of interest for the turning motion of the underwater gliders. Hull forms of underwater gliders are analysed for their overall shape and shape of the forward section for the effect of such changes on the hydrodynamic
coefficients of interest.