Professor of School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia. His research interests cover Industry 4.0, Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Engineering Materials and Structures (Metals and Composites), Multi-scale Modelling of Materials and Structures, Metal Forming and Metal Surface Treatment.
2024-04-30
2024-02-24
2024-01-04
Manuscript received March 7, 2023; revised July 17, 2023; accepted August 8, 2023.
Abstract—The conditions for the operation of Point-of-Care sensors on water bodies are complicated to meet. The limited energy resources and footprint onboard are additional limitations of remote sensing devices. To provide a platform to perform a sufficient number of samples, the customization of Underwater Vehicles involves an integral optimization of space distribution, operation of the sensing mechanisms, and navigation. In this paper, we showcase the design and manufacturing of an Underwater Vehicle towards integration of a microfluidic device platform with a biomimetic approach. To develop this design Fusion 360 was used to sketch the internal components, including the fluid handling unit of the Lab-On-a-Chip biosensor and the reagent reservoirs, hull, and the submarine propulsion system (propeller and dorsal and pectoral fins). Furthermore, we have compared the numerical performance of three different pectoral fins for a shark, devil fish, and a drag reduction evaluating the lift and drag forces using COMSOL Multiphysics for different angles of attacks, demonstrating that a design with more cross-sectional area has 5 times greater drag and up to 3 times greater lift than a balanced and slim design. the final design will depend on the maneuverability requirements of the vehicle. The modularized design was manufactured and integrated successfully using Fusion Deposition Modelling and Stereolithography. Keywords—Point-of-Care, microdevices, hydrodynamics, hull design, UAV, Underwater vehicle, MUV, Modular Underwater Vehicle Cite: Edisson A. Naula Duchi, Brian Ismael Chávez Viveros, Santiago Pérez Burciaga, Luis E. Garza-Castañón, and J. Israel Martínez-López, "Design of Modular Underwater Vehicle Biomimetic Hull Towards Onboard Lab-On-a-Chip Devices," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 324-331, September 2023. Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
