Stress Analysis of Structural Components of Biomimetic Autonomous Subsea Vehicles

Biologically inspired autonomous subsea systems are recently being developed, for oceanographic and underwater explorations. The profile of aquatic animals offer least resistance to mobility in marine habitats and is being mimicked to generate biomimetic self sufficient and energy efficient undersea vehicles. Dependence of buoyant force on such self propelled systems forces the application of light weight material for the manufacture of these vehicles. The high mouldabilty, specific stiffness and specific strength of the novel, advanced material, the laminated composite, make it appropriate for the fabrication of the biomimetic self-contained underwater systems. The geometry of the biomimetic subsea systems can be represented, by thin doubly curved shell surface. Absence of classical solutions for the structural responses of general laminated composite thin doubly curved shells under external hydrostatic pressure demand numerical analysis procedures to evaluate the structural behaviour. In this circumstance, the finite element method presents itself as an efficient tool, for the investigation of structural responses of composite doubly curved shells. This paper presents the computation of elastic structural responses of laminated composite spherical shell acting as the supporting structure for the underwater vehicles, using appropriate composite doubly curved triangular shell element