Suspended Kevlar Array Technology

Considerable progress has been made with the evaluation, design, and utilization of Kevlar in ropes and cables since its initial introduction in the early 1970s. This paper briefly identifies this progress, but principally describes a significant example of the utility of the Kevlar technology in a joint United States/ New Zealand acoustic experiment conducted in the Fiji Basin. The Moored Acoustic Buoy System (MABS), a self-contained acoustic recording instrument, was fitted with a unique Kevlar array and Kevlar mooring lines and deployed with the array in the horizontal and vertical modes during the course of the experiment. The paper briefly describes the experiment, but concentrates primarily on the ocean engineering aspects of the equipment design and fabrication and the description of the operation conducted at sea. This includes a 1830 meter long multi-element array, first deployed in 4250 meters of water in the vertical mode and then moored horizontally in 1737 meters of water.