Design and tests of a trawl-resistant package for an acoustic Doppler current profiler

Author

Dessureault, Jean-Guy ; Belliveau, Donald J. ; Young, Scott W.

Author_Institution

Div. of Metrol., Bedford Inst. of Oceanogr., Dartmouth, NS, Canada

Volume

16

Issue

4

fYear

1991

fDate

10/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

397

Lastpage

401

Abstract

A package designed to protect an RD Instrument Ltd. acoustic Doppler current profiler survived several passages of a bottom trawl. The package, in the shape of a truncated pyramid, has a base 4 m by 3.3 m and a height of 53 cm. The authors describe the package, its deployment method, and field test results where a trawl was repeatedly dragged over the unit. The device has been used successfully three times on the continental shelf. Some acoustic measurements were also made to ascertain the effect of the package on the beam pattern. The results show that this design can protect the instrument from bottom trawls and the acoustic beams are minimally affected by the plastic plate in front of the instrument transducers

Keywords

oceanographic equipment; protection; sonar; ultrasonic equipment; underwater sound; velocity measurement; RD Instrument Ltd. acoustic Doppler current profiler; US; acoustic measurements; beam pattern; bottom trawls; continental shelf; deployment method; design; field test; instrument protection; ocean; sonar; trawl-resistant package; Acoustic beams; Acoustic devices; Acoustic testing; Acoustic transducers; Aluminum; Instruments; Oceans; Packaging; Plastics; Protection;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0364-9059

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/48.90904

Filename

90904