gliders competition

Most underwater vehicles, like submarines, use a spinning propeller to move around in the water. Propeller driven vehicles are fast, but they also require a lot of energy to maintain their speed. Underwater gliders move around by changing their buoyancy, that is, they change their density so that they alternate between more dense and less dense than the surrounding ocean water. This change in buoyancy causes the glider to rise and sink in the ocean.

As the underwater glider goes up and down, its wings give it a forward motion just like the wings on an airplane glider, which is why these devices are also called gliders. But airplane gliders can only "glide" as they fall downwards due to gravity. Underwater gliders can glide forward both as they rise and fall.

In a typical configuration, the ocean glider changes its density by moving a small piston forward and back that increases and decreases its volume. You may remember that you calculate the density of an object by taking its mass and dividing that by the object's volume. Since the mass of the glider remains constant, all we need to do is change its volume. A small change in volume (about a half cup of water) is all the glider needs to change its density enough to rise and sink in the ocean. Other ideas and configurations will be welcomed in this competition.

The objectives of this international academic competition are:

Promote the development of underwater gliders.
Involve the university students in underwater gliders design.
Optimize underwater gliders designs.
Obtain new ideas for future application of underwater gliders in the scientific and business environments.
This competition has an international scope and its main goal is the design of a small underwater glider concept radio controlled, according with the technical requirements of these rules, taking into account the future application of the underwater gliders in the scientific and business environments.

For further information: http://www.etsin.upm.es/ETSINavales/Escuela/e89cb8a29dabf210VgnVCM10000009c76...

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• engineering
• 3d-seed
• tour-etsin
• marine
• maritime
• naval
• etsinavales
• ocean
• glider
• competition
• upm
• international