Tracked amphibians have potential to offer some significant advantages over existing configurations of amphibious vehicle, particularly in a high-speed water operation. The fluid dynamics of high speed tracked amphibians operating in planing mode has not previously been adequately explored or described.

This Thesis explores the concept of a smooth track being used as a propulsion source by exploiting skin friction as thrust mechanism.

Three separate scale Prototypes were designed, built and tested by the Student with the results of each test influencing the design of the subsequent machine. These test results were compared against the theory developed throughout the research. A computational model to predict craft behaviour and performance was developed based on the proposed theory and test findings. The results obtained from the Prototypes suggested the proposed theory provides a reasonable prediction of the behaviour of a smooth tracked craft.

A full scale hypothetical smooth tracked craft was proposed and its performance predicted based on the developed theory. It was found that even with a high power to weight ratio the craft performance was unlikely to be generally considered high performance, this being one of the main goals of the project Sponsor. The poor performance of the hypothetical craft was principally due to the low efficiency of a smooth track.

The practical challenges with building and operating a high-speed smooth tracked craft were documented and explored. These findings would be of interest to anyone developing similar machines in future research.

While it was shown a smooth track is capable of propelling a craft in planing mode, if tracked propulsion was to be further pursued a bladed track configuration would likely result in higher performance as well as being significantly easier to implement.