Abstract
Ice cores from ice shelves contain abundant paleoclimatic information and provide essential information concerned with the prediction of future climatic change and global sea level variations. Efficient retrieval of ice cores is always an engineering challenge in polar ice and marine research. Here, we present design and other information of a new hot-water ice-coring drill used in combination with a hot-water drilling system that provides a rapid and environmentally friendly ice coring system. The coring system shares the surface equipment and hydraulic hose with the hot-water drilling system. Tests with the drill were carried out at an ice drill testing facility, and theoretical estimations were performed to predict the rate of penetration (ROP) and water flow rates. The results indicate the optimal water temperature for ice-coring to be 50 °C, and the most suitable water flow rate to be from 42 L/min to 55 L/min. With those drilling parameters, the maximum ROP is 27.8 m/h and the ice cores are 55–59 mm in diameter.
Highlights
Ice cores of ice sheets/ice shelves contain abundant paleoclimatic information and provide essential information for paleoclimatic reconstruction and prediction of future climatic change and global sea level variation [1]
This paper introduces a kind of hot water ice-coring drill used in combination with the Chinese Hot Water Drilling System on the Amery Ice Shelf, which aims to meet the need of Chinese hot water drilling to get ice cores at certain depths on the ice shelf
A hot water ice-coring system to be used in combination with the Chinese Hot Water Drilling System was designed, tested, and some calculations with it were performed
Summary
Ice cores of ice sheets/ice shelves contain abundant paleoclimatic information and provide essential information for paleoclimatic reconstruction and prediction of future climatic change and global sea level variation [1]. Efficient retrieval of ice cores is always an engineering challenge in polar ice and marine research Conventional drilling techniques such as mechanical drilling have been well developed and attempts have been made to apply them to ice-core drilling [2,3,4]. Some modifications have had to be made to meet the requirement: an additional core barrel has been added to the original structure of hot water drill rigs. This drilling technology is called hot water ice-core drilling, and it has unique superiorities: ice cores can be recovered at any desired depth without coring through the total ice layer, with minimum impact on the local environment [18]. The research discusses the influence of different drilling parameters on coring efficiency and obtained the optimal coring parameters, and can help hot water drilling to obtain quality ice cores in the future field exploration
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