%0 Journal Article %T Design and construction of a two-dimensional hydrodynamic tunnel to study the free motions of solids in a uniform flow %+ Domaines Océaniques (LDO) %+ Laboratoire brestois de mécanique et des systèmes (LBMS) %+ DFMS %A Floc'H, France %A Kerampran, Steven %A Leroux, Jean-Baptiste %A Laurens, Jean-Marc %< avec comité de lecture %@ 0955-5986 %J Flow Measurement and Instrumentation %I Elsevier %V 45 %P 18-27 %8 2015-10 %D 2015 %R 10.1016/j.flowmeasinst.2015.04.009 %K AUV recovery %K Free motion %K 2D hydrodynamic tunnel %Z Engineering Sciences [physics]Journal articles %X Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are increasingly important tools for marine applications. A reasonably reliable prediction of their six degrees of freedom (6DOF) motions is essential. The manoeuvrability of these unmanned submarines relies on the capability to predict the hydrodynamic forces on a freely moving submerged body. Numerical simulators integrating the full physics of the problem have been developed but their validation remains the key issue. Three-dimensional calculations still take too much computing power to complete the very large number of simulations which is required for a full validation procedure. Furthermore, a very large pool with expensive measuring devices is also necessary to obtain experimental results. It was therefore decided to construct a 2D hydrodynamic tunnel in which an object can move with three degrees of freedom solely subjected to gravity and hydrodynamic forces. In the present paper, we describe the experimental device ensuring a simple and rapid implementation of trials: a 2D channel with a constant uniform flow. A general validation is considered with an ellipse. The experimental trajectories are compared with the corresponding analytical results and discussed at the end of the paper. %G English %L hal-01213438 %U https://hal.science/hal-01213438 %~ INSU %~ UNIV-BREST %~ ENSTA-BRETAGNE %~ CNRS %~ ENSTA-BRETAGNE-LBMS %~ ENIB %~ LGO %~ CMM %~ ENSTA-BRETAGNE-MECA %~ GEO-OCEAN