Simulation Studies of the Response of a Deeply Towed Vehicle.

The response of an object towed at great depths to various maneuvers of the towing ship was investigated using a computer to simulate the dynamics of the tow cable. The simulation program had previously been validated against experimental data taken at sea. Sinusoidal deviations of the towing ship from a straight towing track resulted in delayed and reduced excursions of the towed vehicle from the track; the estimated response ratio varied from 0.002 to 0.800, depending both on the period of the deviations (periods ranged from 0.5 to 4.0 hours) and on the towing depth (2 km or 6 km). The ship's speed was 3 km/hr. The time lag between ship motion and vehicle response was approximately 0.5 hours for the shallow case and 1.3 hours for the deep case.