Recente MTec projecten en producten

The surveillance of deep sea habitats or gear is strongly improved by the in house development of a new High Definition camera system suspended in a hopper frame. Using the new fiber optic cable on the Pelagia we are now able to view live HD video recordings in real-time.

After 3 decades Go Flo PVC samplers, better ultra clean PVDF plastics, titanium and improved design now are available in the 21th century.

Novel butterfly-valve type ultraclean samplers have been developed and constructed using ultraclean PVDF plastic manufactured in an ultraclean factory in Austria (www.georgfischer.at). The samplers are closed when passing through the ocean surface and next open at subsurface. The opening is very large for excellent flow-through during downcast and up cast. Teflon valves for sub sampling are placed at lowest position to ensure draining complete sampler including settling particles. The top valve can be connected to gas pressure for pressure filtration at bottom sub sampling valve.

The 24 samplers of 27 Litres each are mounted on an all-titanium frame deployed with a new Kevlar hydrowire cable with internal signal cables. This allows for the rapid ultraclean sampling of the deep oceans for concentrations of trace metal elements aluminum, manganese, iron, cobalt, copper, nickel, zinc, silver, cadmium, platinum and lead (Fe, Mn, Al, Co, Cu, Ni, Zn, Ag, Cd, Pt, Pb), as well as the stable isotope systematics of several such trace metals, notably iron, copper, zinc, cadmium and lead (Fe, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb). Almost all of these trace metal elements are involved in the ocean biological cycle, several directly as bio-essential trace element for every living organism (notably Fe, Mn, Co, Cu, Ni, Zn) and many others by mechanisms yet to be unraveled in the GEOTRACES program.

During the 2008 overhaul of the winch the time was restricted because of its tight operational deployment scheme. The mid life upgrade of the RV Pelagia at a shipyard in Spain created the possibility to realize a vast number of undone repairs and modifications.

Parallel to the overhaul, the winch was equipped with the newly delivered, unique in the world, Hi Tech Kevlar cable. The new features of this cable are: 4 single mode optic fibers, 25% stronger and 78% higher conductor surface.

Because of the changed cable diameter: 19 sheaves and the grooved Lebus sleeves of the cable drum had to be modified. Furthermore the 20' container for the hydraulic power-pack had to be renewed.

For the IN PLACE project a Wadden Sea observatory will be set up at app. 3 km east of Den Helder. An extensive instrumentation suite had to be incorporated in the design. The observatory will have an online bidirectional radio data link to NIOZ.

The Southern Atlantic trajectory of the GEOTRACE cruise will be carried out - by OFEG ship barter arrangements - on board of the British RV James Cook. For this cruise the NIOZ Kevlar Cabled Clean winch was a prerequisite. After extensive operational considerations it was concluded to design and construct a special A-frame.

In the physics department very accurate thermistor strings are being used to study the subsea dynamics such as internal waves. Calibrating these thermistors down to 1 mK (0.001 °C) was usually done at sea, in temperature stable layers in the deep. In practice this often resulted in a limited calibration range of 5 to 7 °C. In the newly designed and constructed 80 liter calibration tank a calibration range from -2 °C to 30 °C is created, at a stability of 1 mK.

In order to improve the facilities for Dutch scientists working in the Antarctic, NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) will establish a Dutch Science Facility in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey at their Antarctic base Rothera. Because of its extensive experience with building containerized seagoing laboratories, NIOZ was approached to be partner in building these labs. Four of the 20 foot container labs will be placed in a protective envelope. In 2010 the planning and engineering of the project started. Three labs were built in 2011 and extensively tested in a special climate testing facility at temperatures down to -25 °C, simulating the harsh Antarctica environment.

During mooring cruises on British vessels from NERC the effective use of a dedicated double capstan winch was experienced by our scientists and technicians. NIOZ purchased a copy of this Lebus winch in order to improve our mooring operations.

Near the NIOZ workshops, a basin was constructed for testing deep sea equipment. With a  5*5*5 m3 dimension, it may accomodate larger equipment such as the MOVE and other bottom landers. After its construction the bottom lander test basin was finalized with the installation of a water treatment installation. Now it is ready to use for testing bottom landers and other seagoing instruments and equipment.