STG Award ​“Students meet Industry” Granted to CAESES-Based Thesis

For his masters thesis on the opti­miza­tion of a rim-driven thruster for an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV), Heinrich Grümmer was honored one of the two first prices at the Students meet Industry event in 2016. The Schiff­bautech­nis­che Gesellschaft e.V. (STG) yearly awards students for their naval archi­tec­ture related thesis, based on pre­sen­ta­tions given at the event. He gave his pre­sen­ta­tion again this month at the STG general meeting in Hamburg. The fol­low­ing section gives a short summary plus a video with an animation. 

Propul­sion Unit of an Autonomous Surface Vessel

In the design of autonomous, unmanned surface vessels, par­tic­u­lar atten­tion needs to be paid to meet the special require­ments placed upon the propul­sion unit of such system. The concept of using a hubless rim-driven thruster offers several advan­tages compared to a con­ven­tional pro­peller, shaft and rudder system, but is also chal­leng­ing when it comes to effi­cient design using an upfront Com­pu­ta­tional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach. A com­pu­ta­tional setup, enhanced by empir­i­cal models account­ing for the neglect of friction within nozzle and rim, is derived from com­par­i­son with existing exper­i­men­tal findings. Sub­se­quently, an opti­miza­tion, based on towing tank tests of the hull, a fully para­met­ric model of the thruster, an auto­matic grid gen­er­a­tion process and the evolved CFD setup is carried out. Numerous variants are examined, and a single-objec­tive algo­rithm leads to an opti­mized thruster design for the aXat­lantic hull which rep­re­sents the prac­ti­cal back­ground of this work.

More Infor­ma­tion

Heinrich Grümmer has been working on the design and con­struc­tion of a solar powered, unmanned ASV for the past two years within the aXat­lantic project. Since the initial hull design of the vessel and through­out the entire design process, as well as the master thesis, CAESES® has been closely inte­grated into his work. We con­grat­u­late to the award and keep our thumbs pressed for the final ocean crossing of the aXat­lantic. Please see the STG website for more information.