The Submarine Design and Technologies Competition was organized under the Postgraduate and Undergraduate categories.  Initially, the applications were received and then workshops were held over the last year and the applications were evaluated by the jury (STM Naval Projects Director Rear Admiral (Ret’d) Savaş ONUR). The Design and Technologies Competition plays an important role for the future of the ecosystem in Turkey with the valuable inventive ideas developed by students from different disciplines for submarine platforms that are of strategic importance and the innovative new technologies that arise out of the creative process.

In the Undergraduate Category of the competition, the thesis titled “Floating Antenna Design for Submarines and Underwater Vehicles” of Mustafa KUTLU, Aykut ALKAN and İbrahim SAVRUKOĞLU (Istanbul Technical University) under the supervision of Prof. Kadir KIRKKÖPRU placed first. The thesis titled “Online Body Diagnosis and Mine Diagnosis with Unmanned Underwater Vehicle” of Merve BERİK (Bülent Ecevit University) under the supervision of Seda Karadeniz KARTAL came in second place and the thesis on “Computational Analysis of Scale Effects in the Calculation of Submarine Resistance with Fluid Dynamics” of Hasan ÖZTÜRK (Yıldız Technical University) under the supervision of Dr. Yasemin Arıkan ÖZDEN placed third. 

In the Postgraduate Category, the thesis titled “Hydrodynamic Analysis of an Underwater Glider” of Mehmet Ozan ŞERİFOĞLU (Istanbul Technical University) under the supervision of Asst. Prof. Bilge TUTAK ranked first, the thesis titled “Computational and Experimental Analysis of Trace-Compatible Submarine Propeller Design” of Sinan BURUNSUZ (Istanbul Technical University) under the supervision of Prof. İsmail Hakkı HELVACIOĞLU ranked second and the thesis titled “Underwater Electro-Optic Intercom System Design” of Kaan ALPER (Bahçeşehir University) under the supervision of Prof. Sarper ÖZHARAR ranked third.

In order to become a major player in the maritime sector worldwide, STM has also been recently concentrating its efforts on underwater platforms with the strength it has been gaining from the success in the MİLGEM Project.

Being a leading organization in the construction and modernization of submarine projects in Turkey, STM has been investing and improving skills in this field for over 10 years with the experience and knowhow of more than a quarter century.

Delivering a short speech at the ceremony, Arif ALCAR, STM Submarine Design Manager informed participants on the Design and Technologies Competition that was held for the first time this year.

Answering the question on the reason for selecting the Naval Museum as the venue of the ceremony at the beginning of his speech, he shared that the Beşiktaş Naval Museum incorporated the history of the Turkish Naval Forces and that it was located at the area where Nuri DEMİRAĞ Aircraft Design Office – Turkey’s first aircraft engine design office was built, and he added, “I think organizing the ceremony at this place is really meaningful for a design and technology competition”. Reminding the audience that Turkey is still making efforts to design and build its own submarine, ALCAR said, as STM, they think that national power and resources need to be mobilized for designing and building submarines and in the meanwhile all relevant institutions should act according to a plan.

Stating that, as STM, they have been contributing, and intend to do so in the future, to submarine building, modernization and similar activities conducted in Turkey under the auspices of the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB), the National Submarine (MİLDEN) Project being in the first place, ALCAR said that in the analysis they made themselves, one of the issues that they saw in common amongst the countries that built their own submarines was that intensive research, articles and publications had been initiated years before the start of the National Submarine Project in the universities of these countries. ALCAR: “As STM, the important factor to organize such a thesis competition is to trigger and activate the development potential in this field. We organized this competition in order to close the gap even a little, to draw attention to the submarine topic, and to ensure that our young people in various branches at universities focus on the submarine issue and create a submarine design force in the future. 23 approved Undergraduate and Postgraduate Theses from 10 universities took part in the competition. This number is more than one third of the theses published in our universities in the last 30 years. The number of theses done within nearly ten years have been accomplished just last year and we believe this number will climb to much higher levels in the future. On this occasion, we would like to express that the valuable students participating in our competition should have the rightful pride of breaking new ground. If theoretical background is not generated at universities, we believe Turkey, under no circumstances, will be able to own its fully indigenous and national technologies. We would also like to ask our esteemed faculty members to encourage participation in this competition, which we plan to organize continuously.

In order to progress in the submarine area, which is of critical importance in gaining strategic talent to Turkey, our state, industry and universities are putting forth efforts in coordination, and therefore, we look forward to your valuable contribution in this regard. We fully believe that our precious young people, that we entrust our country to in the future, will fulfill their duties successfully”.

Recalling that STM was established in 1991 with the aim of localizing the defense technologies needed in our country and creating critical engineering knowhow, STM General Manager Murat İKİNCİ noted that, as of today, STM employs nearly 700 engineers and incorporates considerable knowhow in the field of military marine technologies.

Stating that STM’s current strong engineering structure is very significant toward developing national solutions that will required in the future, İKİNCİ summarized the main objective of the Submarine Design and Technologies Competition, which is the one and only in Turkey, as “to create our own power for building our National Submarine that we will need in the future.” İKİNCİ: “We believe fully in this matter. One of the most important issues that we place importance upon is the fulfillment of our future needs by our own children through STM’s engineering knowhow, which is also included in STM’s founding purpose. In fact, we started cooperating with our universities in earlier years. We provided training especially in the field of marine technologies and tried to raise awareness at our universities. As of today, we believe that we have brought the cooperation between universities and industry to a certain point. With this and similar competitions, we aim to train our engineer candidates who will take over the flag for us in the future in the domains in which we have needs and requirements." 

Following the speeches, awards were presented to the contestants and photos were taken.