CAREER: A Unified Research and Outreach Program in Nonlinear Vessel Dynamics

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This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project aims to develop analytical and computational tools that will help ship designers understand and prevent dangerous vessel phenomena such as capsizing. The project focuses upon three primary objectives. (1) Advance the state of the art in the application of analytical approaches, specifically Melnikov's method, to vessel dynamics phenomena. (2) Establish a suite of verification and validation tools for nonlinear maneuvering and seakeeping simulations. (3) Develop real-time, neural network based, motion prediction tools. A combination of neural networks, to choose an appropriate idealization of the physics of the system, and optimization, for parameter identification, will be used for real time modeling of system dynamics. This third objective serves to unify the first two. By tying a neural network to physically meaningful equations, this approach is valuable for computational tool validation. Moreover, by identifying real-time idealized physics of the system, analytical methods can be applied to study vessel behavior. All three of these objectives will further our understanding of the behavior and modeling of ship motions and other chaotic dynamical systems.Although travel by sea is one of the oldest means of transportation, ship instabilities claim lives, cargo, and craft every year. Capsize is a highly nonlinear, dynamic, even chaotic, phenomenon of which there are many facets we do not fully understand. The research objectives described above have the potential for broad impact in multiple disciplines from naval engineering to dynamical systems theory to applied mathematics. The fundamental research in this CAREER project is coupled with active outreach to recruit and retain outstanding pre-college and college students into engineering in general and naval engineering specifically. The three outreach components include: (1) Work in collaboration with local high schools, targeting the Southwest Virginia Governor's School, to build student participation in the SeaPerch program, a hands-on program that teaches pre-college students about robotics and underwater vehicles. (2) Participate and supporting events organized by the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity such as Women's Weekend and pre-college academic experiences for students. (3) Maintain an interactive and exciting learning environment with courses directly related to the research topics in this project.