The overarching goal of this program is to create fundamental research breakthroughs that enable quiet, agile and efficient naval operations for any naval vessel in any physical battlespace. The objective is to provide scientific and engineering foundations to enable revolutionary improvements on the design, analysis and operation of naval platforms and propulsors. This program aims to advance our knowledge base, measurement techniques, computational tools and data-science methods in the following key research concentration areas:
- Turbulent multiphase and heterogeneous flows
- Vorticity generation, interaction and dissipation
- Interfacial dynamics and instabilities
- Fluid-structure hydrodynamic and hydroacoustic interactions
- 3-D vehicle dynamics, multi-component interactions, maneuvering and transients
- Novel propulsors
- Integrated sensing, data science and control mechanisms
Research Challenges and Opportunities
Significant opportunities exist for advancing the fundamental understanding and predictive tools for platform and propulsor hydrodynamics, hydroacoustics and structural dynamics with consideration for vehicle motions and varying operating conditions (e.g. proximity to free surface or solid boundaries, heterogeneous flows, etc.). Some of the key challenges include:
How can we account for and leverage the complex ocean domain?
How do we reliably and efficiently capture the physics on all relevant length and time scales?
How can we move quickly and quietly for any naval platform in any medium?
How can we design (re)configurable and scalable platforms and propulsors?
How can we enable platform self-awareness and adaptive control?
We seek foundational scientific discoveries that advance predictive methods, measurements and sensing techniques to characterize relevant hydrodynamics, hydroacoustics and fluid-structure interaction phenomena. To maximize system resilience and utility, we must understand and accurately predict associated fluid and solid physical phenomena on all relevant length and time scales. We need to translate laboratory experimental phenomena to corresponding complex physical battlespace. In addition to the steady-state, smooth and rigid-body hydrodynamics that has previously been explored, we will advance the state-of-the-art by investigating transient hydrodynamics, hydroacoustics and fluid-structure interaction phenomena of complex 3-D bodies maneuvering in heterogeneous fluids in unbounded or bounded domains. Novel sensors, materials, measurement and computational techniques along with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data fusion techniques will be developed to enable greater fidelity in capturing the transient dynamics of naval platforms and propulsors in realistic operating conditions. Novel sensors will be developed to enhance dynamic range and reduce experimental caveats. We also seek novel platform and propulsor concepts resulting in significant improvements to stealth, speed, maneuverability and efficiency.
UPDATED: June 2025
How to Submit
For detailed application and submission information for this research topic, please refer to our broad agency announcement (BAA) No. N0001425SB001.
Contracts: All white papers and full proposals for contracts must be submitted through the ONR Submission Portal; instructions are included in the BAA.
Grants: All white papers for grants must be submitted through the ONR Submission Portal, and full proposals for grants must be submitted through grants.gov; instructions are included in the BAA.