Hydrodynamic Loads on a Restrained ROV under Wave and Current

Hydrodynamic forces are an important input value for the design, navigation and station keeping of underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs). The experiment investigated the forces imparted by currents (with representative real world turbulence) and waves on a commercially available ROV, namely the BlueROV2 (Blue Robotics, Torrance, USA). Three different distances of a simplified cylindrical obstacle (shading effects) were investigated in addition to the free stream cases. Eight tethers held the ROV in the middle of the 2 m water depth to minimise the influence of the support structure without completely restricting the degrees of freedom (DoF). Each tether was equipped with a load cell and small motions and rotations were documented with an underwater video motion capture system. The paper describes the experimental set-up, input values (current speed and wave definitions) and initial processing of the data. In addition to the raw data, a processed dataset is provided, which includes forces in all three main coordinate directions for each mounting point synchronised with the 6DoF results and the free surface elevations. The provided dataset can be used as a validation experiment as well as for testing and development of an algorithm for position control of comparable ROVs.