Modeling and Simulation of an Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) for Surveillance and Inspection of Port Facilities Using CFD Tools

This article presents theoretical and computational studies with Computational Fluids Dynamics (CFD) tools of an Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), required to obtain reliable visual information, used for surveillance and maintenance of ship shells and underwater structures of Colombian port facilities. The thrust force is analyzed at the operational conditions by using CFD tools (FLUENT™, CFX™, COSMOSFLOW™) and the information about forces, torques and power of the vehicle’s thrusters is obtained. The commercial propellers were modeled by using a reverse engineering process with a 3D scanner and Computer Aided Design (CAD) software (RAPIDFORM™). The results obtained with the CFD package allowed to evaluate several operating scenarios of the vehicle that are used for feedback purposes in the design process of the ROV before it be manufactured.