Minerals (Mar 2022)
Design and Computational Analyses of Nature Inspired Unmanned Amphibious Vehicle for Deep Sea Mining
Abstract
This paper presents the design calculations, implementations, and multi-engineering based computational constructions of an unmanned amphibious vehicle (UAmV) which efficiently travels underwater to detect and collect deep-sea minerals for investigations, as well as creative usage purposes. The UAmV is expected to operate at a 300 m depth from the water surface. The UAmV is deployed above the water surface near to the approximate target location and swims underwater, checking the presence of various mining, then extracts them using a unique mechanism and stores them in an inimitable fuselage location. Since this proposed UAmV survives in deep-sea regions, the design construction of this UAmV is inspired by hydrodynamic efficient design-based fish, i.e., Rhinaancylostoma. Additionally, standard analytical approaches are followed and, subsequently, the inimitable components such as wing, stabilizers, propellers, and mining storage focused fuselage are calculated. The computational analyses such as hydrodynamic investigations and vibrational investigations were carried out with the help of ANSYS Workbench. The hydrodynamic pressures at various deployment regions were estimated and thereafter the vibrational outcomes of UAmVs were captured for various lightweight materials. The computed outcomes were imposed in the analytical approach and thereby the electrical energy generations by the UAmV’s components were calculated. Finally, the hydrodynamic efficient design and best material were picked, which provided a path to further works on the execution of the focused mission. Based on the low drag generating design profile and high electrical energy induction factors, the optimizations were executed on this work, and thus the needful, as well as suitable UAmV, was finalized for targeted real-time applications.
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