CFD Simulation Study on Propulsion Performance of Air-Water Dual-Mode Cross-Medium Robot

SUN Yufeng; ZHOU Jing; ZHAO Liming; LIU Meiqin

doi:10.11993/j.issn.2096-3920.2025-0118

Volume 34 Issue 1

Feb 2026

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Article Navigation > Journal of Unmanned Undersea Systems > 2026 > 34(1): 94-108

SUN Yufeng, ZHOU Jing, ZHAO Liming, LIU Meiqin. CFD Simulation Study on Propulsion Performance of Air-Water Dual-Mode Cross-Medium Robot[J]. Journal of Unmanned Undersea Systems, 2026, 34(1): 94-108. doi: 10.11993/j.issn.2096-3920.2025-0118

Citation:

SUN Yufeng, ZHOU Jing, ZHAO Liming, LIU Meiqin. CFD Simulation Study on Propulsion Performance of Air-Water Dual-Mode Cross-Medium Robot[J]. Journal of Unmanned Undersea Systems, 2026, 34(1): 94-108. doi: 10.11993/j.issn.2096-3920.2025-0118

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CFD Simulation Study on Propulsion Performance of Air-Water Dual-Mode Cross-Medium Robot

doi: 10.11993/j.issn.2096-3920.2025-0118

SUN Yufeng^1
,,
ZHOU Jing^{1, 2
,
,},
ZHAO Liming^1
,,
LIU Meiqin^1
,

1.
College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
2.
Hainan Research Institute of Zhejiang University, Sanya 572025, China

Received Date: 2025-09-03
Accepted Date: 2025-11-17
Rev Recd Date: 2025-11-12

Available Online: 2026-01-20

Abstract

Abstract

To meet the demand for cross-medium operations in complex marine environments, this paper conducted a computational fluid dynamics(CFD) simulation study on the propulsion system of a cross-medium robot with air-water dual-mode motion capability. Due to the significant differences in physical properties such as density and viscosity between air and water, traditional single-environment propellers fail to balance high propulsion efficiency in both media. To address this, this paper established a three-dimensional transient CFD model covering typical aerial and underwater conditions. The sliding mesh and volume of fluid methods were adopted to perform a comparative simulation analysis of single-propeller and multi-propeller coupled systems, revealing the differences and patterns of the cross-medium propulsion system in terms of thrust coefficient, propulsion efficiency, and wake interference. The results indicate that at a speed of 3 kn, the underwater propulsion system achieves an efficiency of up to 48.48%, significantly higher than that of the aerial propulsion system(7.43%). Although multi-propeller operation induces wake coupling interference, an optimized layout can improve the overall efficiency. This paper constructed a unified CFD analysis framework for air-water propulsion and proposed a quantitative evaluation method for cross-medium propulsion performance, providing theoretical support for the layout optimization and multimodal coordination design of cross-medium robots.
- cross-medium robot,
- air-water dual-mode,
- CFD simulation,
- performance propulsion,
- wake,
- multimodal coordination

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References(19)

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