Minesweeping for pressure actuated mines by air injection into a water column

• Main Author: Actkinson, John Ira.
• Other Authors: Denardo, Bruce C.
• Published: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/5493

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. === The U.S. Navy historically has not had an adequate means to remotely pressure-sweep for mines at reasonable speeds and cost, and this is still the case. The Navy has addressed such threats, but countermeasures are time consuming and considered to be very resource intensive. During this thesis two sets of data were collected in tow tank experiments using two different sizes of Bubble Squid apparatus. This thesis is a continuation of work already completed by Lieutenant Jeffery Murawski from December 2009. This continuation was able to extend the proof-of-concept with larger scale tow-tank testing at NPS. Further testing with the much larger three-meter Bubble Squid apparatus culminated in experiments conducted in March 2010 at the David Taylor Research Basin in Carderock, MD. The data that was collected and analyzed in this thesis will show that the Bubble Squid apparatus is a viable concept for solving the pressure influence minesweeping capability gap.