A study on the dynamics of marine umbilical cable for underwater vehicle

Abstract

The dynamics of underwater umbilical cable (UC) for underwater vehicle (UV) are an important in ocean engineering. These UC are widely used in the ocean environment for signal and power transmission application. To apply the cable to power and data transmission for small UV, the dynamics of the UC are studied in the paper. The nonlinear and coupled UC dynamics are complicated, but need to be analyzed in real time for application. In the study, the governing equations of cables are established based on the catenary equation method. The shooting method is applied to solve a two-point boundary value problem. This paper presents the formulation and solution of governing equations that can be used to estimate the three dimensions (3-D) position and forces of the cable end point under the action of concentrated and distributed forces due to underwater currents in 3-D. The validity of the proposed method is shown by simulation results.