Hyper-Insulated Instrumentation System to Support Year-Round Research in Polar Regions

超绝缘仪器系统支持极地地区的全年研究

• 批准号: 0337737
• 负责人: Anthony Hansen
• 金额: $ 6.49万
• 依托单位: Magee Scientific Company
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-01 至 2007-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0337737&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Hyper; Insulated; Instrumentation; System; Support

Year-round scientific research in Polar Regions is seriously challenged by the ambient environment. Extreme low temperatures, six-month darkness, high winds, and icing, create substantial problems for remote instrumentation stations to operate unattended for a year or more. Consequently, many research projects experience loss of data or the simple inability to acquire data over extended areas or periods of time, leading to substantial temporal and geographical gaps in our knowledge of these critical regions. The ability to deploy an instrumentation package that could survive these conditions and gather data unattended for one or multiple years would help to fill these gaps. Additionally, the risks and logistical costs of accessing a remote site even on a yearly basis can be very considerable in some cases, depending on location. The availability of instrumentation support capable of operating for multiple years would allow the research community to plan data-gathering networks that could be supported at a reasonable cost and with less risk. This type of system could also support year-round research at locations that have well-developed summer camps, yet which are unoccupied and inaccessible during the winter. This award provides support to build and test a 'Hyper-Insulated Instrumentation System', an enclosure which synthesizes a number of recent developments in an innovative manner. It will contribute to the polar regions scientific research infrastructure by providing a warm, powered environment for an instrumentation payload, with a 'passive' design endurance of 10,000 hours when buried in a shallow snow pit at -60 (more or less) C. Insulation will be provided by a large-capacity metal dewar flask as now used in biotechnology for preserving samples in liquid nitrogen; thermal storage will be provided by the latent heat of fusion of 150 liters of specially-formulated paraffin oil; electrical energy will be supplied by lithium-ion batteries as recently developed for military applications. The addition of solar panels will offer multi-year operation, by recharging the system electrically and thermally during the summer. An 'Iridium' modem will provide communications to report on system status and transmit summaries of scientific data stored on solid-state memory. The system will be designed for transportation to remote field sites by helicopter or 'Twin Otter' aircraft, and handling by no more than two people. The system will be developed and tested with one year-long deployment at South Pole Station in Antarctica. For testing purposes the system will be equipped with an array of temperature probes as commonly used for glaciology research, but the system will be explicitly designed to be able to accommodate almost any 'payload package' of data-gathering equipment. An undergraduate engineering student will be involved with aspects of the thermal and data-communications design and field testing of the equipment and the project will constitute a large part of the student's undergraduate thesis.

极地科学研究常年受到周围环境的严峻挑战。 极端低温、长达六个月的黑暗、强风和结冰，给远程仪表站在无人值守的情况下运行一年或更长时间带来了严重问题。 因此，许多研究项目都会遇到数据丢失或无法在较长区域或时间段内获取数据的情况，导致我们对这些关键区域的了解存在巨大的时间和地理差距。 部署能够在这些条件下生存并在无人值守的情况下收集数据一年或多年的仪器包的能力将有助于填补这些空白。此外，在某些情况下，根据位置的不同，即使每年访问远程站点的风险和后勤成本也可能非常大。 能够运行多年的仪器支持的可用性将使研究界能够规划数据收集网络，这些网络可以以合理的成本和较低的风险得到支持。 这种类型的系统还可以支持在拥有完善的夏令营但在冬季无人居住且无法进入的地点进行全年研究。 该奖项为构建和测试“超绝缘仪表系统”提供支持，该系统是一种以创新方式综合了许多最新开发成果的外壳。 它将为极地地区的科学研究基础设施做出贡献，为仪器有效载荷提供温暖的动力环境，当埋在-60（或多或少）摄氏度的浅雪坑中时，其“被动”设计耐久性为10,000小时。绝缘将由大容量金属杜瓦瓶提供，目前在生物技术中用于在液氮中保存样品；热储存将由150升特殊配制的石蜡油的熔化潜热提供；电能将由最近为军事应用开发的锂离子电池提供。 添加太阳能电池板将通过在夏季对系统进行电力和热力充电来提供多年运行。 “铱”调制解调器将提供通信来报告系统状态并传输存储在固态存储器上的科学数据的摘要。 该系统将设计用于通过直升机或“双水獭”飞机运输到偏远的现场，并且由不超过两人进行搬运。该系统将在南极洲南极站进行为期一年的开发和测试。出于测试目的，该系统将配备冰川学研究常用的一系列温度探头，但该系统将明确设计为能够容纳几乎任何数据收集设备的“有效负载包”。 工程本科生将参与设备的热和数据通信设计以及现场测试，该项目将构成学生本科论文的很大一部分。