WEST BETHESDA, Md. –
As leaders in innovation for the U.S. Navy, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division often brings together their workforce of scientists and engineers and partners with other government agencies, private companies and universities under Cooperative Research and Development Agreements.
A CRADA with the Virginia Military Institute led to a design for an automated bow door for the Small Unit Riverine Craft (SURC) which was transitioned into an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) by Carderock's Unmanned Maritime Mobility Group at its Combatant Craft Division in Norfolk, Virginia.
As part of their senior design project, Virginia Military Institute cadets Tyler Corcoran, Brandon Conley and Austin Roe, under the mentorship of Professor Dr. Gerald "Jay" Sullivan, worked with Carderock engineers to come up with a fully-functional design to automate the bow door of the unmanned SURC that originally had to be manually deployed.
According to Corcoran, Conley and Roe's final report, the SURC bow door is required in order to transport an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) from the vessel to the beach without human intervention. Successful transportation of the UGV from the vessel to the beach also requires installation of a fully automated ramp system that spans the gap between the end of the existing bow door to the beach. UGVs could potentially play a vital part in safely clearing a path once a USV or other craft is beached, and are intended to reduce risk of potential hazards on land.
Jonathan Holbert, a naval architect in the Center for Innovation in Ship Design at Carderock's headquarters in West Bethesda, Maryland, was one of the engineers in the Unmanned Maritime Mobility Group that worked with the VMI cadets to complete the project.
"VMI usually sets up sponsors for their projects so the students can work with real-life scenarios interfacing with a real customer," Holbert said. "These projects are very beneficial in giving the student the technical interaction, as well as professional interaction. What the cadets were able to accomplish with the automation of the bow door in the short few months of a semester was very impressive."
Holbert came to Carderock in August 2015 following his participation in the Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program. His work currently focuses on the development of surface combatant concept designs, but he said that he has had the benefit of being able to go on a variety of rotations. He got involved with this project while doing a rotation at Combatant Craft Division. It was there that he joined the Unmanned Maritime Mobility Group and participated in this project. He was supported by Carderock employees Dr. Tim Coats, Scott Sampson, David Colburn, Alex Jeffrey and Vincent Thiele, who provided key insight into the design process and participated in the final project review.
As stated in the final report, the design for the automated bow door had to eliminate the need for human intervention while minimizing the changes to the existing structure. The design also had to meet military and government mechanical specifications and be able to transport the UGV, as well as a fully burdened Sailor or Marine to the beach.
"They were able to visit the SURC that we have over at the V-47 waterfront facility down at combatant craft," Holbert said. "They got a tour and got to see a little bit of the work that goes on down there, as well as get on the SURC itself, take measurements and kind of have a physical understanding of what the problem was.
"After that, they went back to VMI and began the design process, which started off with looking at the constraints of the problem, some of the physical dimensions that they took, what type of mechanical linkages they can design, what type of actuators, etc. They went through a few different trade studies and once they selected an actuator design they did a structural analysis. They did a finite element analysis on the model that they built in Solid Works, as well as they chose a pneumatic system. So they did a pneumatic air supply analysis, as well as an electrical controls analysis."
According to the final product report, the bow door automation system is capable of achieving the maximum angle of the bow door relative to the deck, and the proposed system does not require any modifications to the existing bow structure, which significantly lowers the cost of implementing the design.
"It was an awesome experience for me as a new hire within my first couple of years to be able to interface with a project group like that. That was kind of a trial, because in the future I'm sure I'll be holding a similar position in one way or another. It was good just being able to work with the students - with myself not being too far removed from the senior design process - it was nice to help them through that and to share some insights," Holbert said.
Before coming to Carderock, Holbert earned his bachelor's and master's in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan. He said University of Michigan is one of about a dozen or so naval architecture programs in the country, and Carderock remains prevalent as the standard for naval architecture and innovation.