Effect of Water Depth on ROV Materials Selection and Designs (original) (raw)

The aim of this research is to select ROV Frame Material for Improved Performance in Varying Ocean Depth with the aid of MATLAB programming language and STAAD.Pro software by applying the numerical skills. This was achieved by first running a material test analysis on the frame of the ROV, then a stress analysis test is carried out on the material and sizes selected to determine if the ROV frame can withstand the stress on the material. The total force due to wave effect and total forces on the ROV is then computed using the MATLAB, then the power required to drive the ROV at different water depth of 50m, 500m and 1000m during the operation is computed. Based on the results, suitable material among the under study is selected. It can be deduced from the results that, the maximum internal displacement of the ROV frame that houses all the components is able to withstand over 50 kPa with an inner displacement of 5mm. The result when compared with the maximum allowable stress of steel of 210 was found to be satisfactory. The von mises stress of the ROV frame under load which is the value used to determine if a given material will yield or fracture under load was also computed during the ROV design. The von mises stress helps to show if the material will fail under the different impacted load on the ROV frame based on the nodal sub-region employ, and the areas or region with least impacted load as shown with blue coloration having a von mises stress less than 200.4665 kpa while the area or region with the most load impact or distribution is shown with red coloration with maximum von mises stress greater than or equal to 53.936212 Mpa. The design also computes the power required to drive the ROV and the power that will be require to drive the ROV though the maximum power of about 2000kw as the working power of the ROV. It was also observed that the minimum drive power of the ROV (250kw) was recorded at 1000m water depth. The task to determine how deep into ocean the Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle can dive while maintaining a safety factor of 1.5 was also accomplish as Stainless steel 317, Titanium Grade 5 and Aluminium 7075 meet the factor of safety condition at water depth of 1000m.