Development of a deep-sea sediment long coring system based on a Jackhammer for R/V Kexue

摘要

A long coring system for deep-sea sediment cores has been developed by the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS). This novel device is a hybrid of Jackhammer (pneumatic drill) and gravity sampler. The originally designed recovered length is up to 30 m in water depths of 3500 m. The hybrid corer has variable weight around 2 tons, determined by the core length. So it can be deployed as a gravity sampler for the first 0–10 m clays sample. After it been plugged by the mud, a homemade deep-sea “Jackhammer” will start to drive the system go deeper and deeper. This homemade deep-sea “Jackhammer” can drive an internal hammer up and down with 0–28kN force at 1 cycle/min by a 2.5kw/100V 1500rpm deep-water motor. It has been tested on the ground. This hybrid corer is designed for the R/V Kexue, which is a new designed 4000 tons research vessel and will be delivered to IOCAS at September, 2012. This hybrid corer is the main sediment core system for this new ship. This paper will discuss the technique details and show the first ground test result.