The non-uniformity of the propeller wake field will lead to noise deterioration and structural strength problems of the underwater vehicles. Therefore, the study of jet flow technology is of great significance for improving the uniformity of the wake field and reducing vibration and noise. In this study, the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes method and Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic model are used together to ascertain the influence of jet flow on the hydrodynamic and noise performance of the propeller. The accuracy of the numerical simulation method is verified through the convergence analysis of the calculation results. The hydrodynamic performance of the submarine and propeller with jet flows on different parameters is studied. The results show that the triangular jet can significantly improve the non-uniformity of the circumferential distribution of the wake field at the propeller plane and reduce the dynamic bearing force of the propeller blade. Simultaneously, the spectrum analysis of the numerical simulation results of the propeller noise shows that, compared with the no jet condition, the total sound pressure level at the propeller plane in the low-frequency range can be reduced by more than 3 dB using jet flow in front of the propeller. Hence, the low-frequency discrete spectrum noise of the submarine propeller can be better controlled.

Anti-rolling devices are widely used in modern shipboard components. In particular, ship anti-rolling control systems are developed to achieve a wide range of ship speeds and efficient anti-rolling capabilities. However, factors that are challenging to solve accurately, such as strong nonlinearities, a complex working environment, and hydrodynamic system parameters, limit the investigation of the rolling motion of ships at sea. Moreover, current anti-rolling control systems still face several challenges, such as poor nonlinear adaptability and manual parameter adjustment. In this regard, this study developed a dynamic model for a ship anti-rolling system. In addition, based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL), an efficient anti-rolling controller was developed using a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm. Finally, the developed system was applied to a ship anti-rolling device based on the Magnus effect. The advantages of reinforcement learning adaptive control enable controlling an anti-rolling system under various wave angles, ship speeds, and wavelengths. The results revealed that the anti-rolling efficiency of the intelligent ship anti-rolling control method using the DDPG algorithm surpassed 95% and had fast convergence. This study lays the foundation for developing a DRL anti-rolling controller for full-scale ships.

In marine environments, ships are bound to be disturbed by several external factors, which can cause stochastic fluctuations and strong nonlinearity in the ship motion. Predicting ship motion is pivotal to ensuring ship safety and providing early warning of risks. This report proposes a real-time ship vertical acceleration prediction algorithm based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent units (GRU) models of a recurrent neural network. The vertical acceleration time history data at the bow, middle, and stern of a large-scale ship model were obtained by performing a self-propulsion test at sea, and the original data were pre-processed by resampling and normalisation via Python. The prediction results revealed that the proposed algorithm could accurately predict the acceleration time history data of the large-scale ship model, and the root mean square error between the predicted and real values was no greater than 0.1. The optimised multivariate time series prediction program could reduce the calculation time by approximately 55% compared to that of a univariate time series prediction program, and the run time of the GRU model was better than that of the LSTM model.

The hubless rim-driven thruster (RDT) has become increasingly interesting for ship propulsion. Gap flow has been proven as the main feature of RDT that cannot be simply neglected. In this study, based on a classical hubless RDT, the effects of the gap geometry are studied by adjusting its axial passage length, and inlet and outlet oblique angles. The hydrodynamic characteristics of the RDT were simulated with OpenFOAM based on the k – ω shear stress transport turbulence model. Due to the pressure increase after the main flow passes through the rotating blades, the flow inside gap is driven upstream, which is opposite to the main flow direction. It is found that the hydrodynamic efficiency is increased as the gap axial passage length is shortened, which is realized by increasing the oblique angle with the fixed inlet and outlet positions. Moving the inlet and outlet to further downstream and upstream positions has negligible effects on the hydrodynamic efficiency and leads to recirculating flow within the gap near its inlet. These findings shed light on the design of the gap geometry to improve the RDT hydrodynamic performance.

Vortex shedding of freely rotating hydrofoils and the fluctuations in hydrodynamic loads are typical problems in marine engineering. Hence, the hydrodynamic mechanism should be investigated in detail. In this study, the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes method is used to analyze the unsteady flow characteristics of a two-dimensional freely rotating hydrofoil in uniform flow at different Reynolds numbers. The accuracy of the numerical simulation method is verified through convergence analysis of the simulation results. According to the mechanical characteristics and flow field distributions, the effects of three Reynolds numbers from 5 × 10⁴ to 1.2 × 10⁶ and five rotation centers from 0.2c to 0.4c on the dynamic stall of the hydrofoil are analyzed. The results show that the rotation center considerably influences the dynamic stall characteristics of the hydrofoil. As the rotation center approaches 0.4c, the amplitudes of the drag and lift coefficients and the rotation angle of the hydrofoil clearly increase by at least 206%, 10.5%, and 185%, respectively, along with the vortex shedding frequency, which also leads to the increase in the Strouhal number by at least 17.3%. Furthermore, the recovery of the drag and lift coefficients is delayed, resulting in an evident hysteresis effect. Simultaneously, this dynamic stall results in the decrease in the velocity distribution amplitude in the wake field and the increase in the pressure difference between the upper and lower surfaces. The continuous shedding of strong vortices from the trailing edge also leads to more complicated flow field characteristics.