Structure design of an autonomous underwater vehicle made of composite material

Abstract

Underwater vehicles are weight-sensitive structure for its balance requirement of buoyancy and gravity in water. Composite material which has an excellent specific strength and stiffness is stable against the chemical reaction. Besides, composite structure has excellent sound absorption properties. This paper studies the optimal calculation process that decreases the structure weight of an autonomous underwater vehicle which has a novel integral structure made of carbon fiber under the prescriptive working conditions. Based on the statistical techniques, a strategy of response surface model for AUV structure design is proposed. Genetic algorithm was used for the optimization using response surface model instead of the finite element analysis, and the number of carbon fiber layer in the different locations of the integrative structure is calculated finally.