30 September 2019 to 3 October 2019
The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Europe/Copenhagen timezone

The development of the RADIX rapid access drilling system

1 Oct 2019, 16:20
20m
The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters H.C. Andersens Boulevard 35 DK-1553 Copenhagen V Denmark
Oral Session 4

Speaker

Dr Jakob Schwander (University of Bern)

Description

Rapid drilling of an access hole in ice sheets can complement the prospection of potential deep drilling sites and serve to locally explore an ice sheet. RADIX is a rapid access system for an access hole of 20 mm diameter optimized for minimal resources and logistics demand. It is based on a coiled drilling system. The drilled ice cuttings are available for analysis. The drilling speed is about 10 mm/s, resulting in less than 4 days of continuous drilling for a 3000 m hole. We present the experience of a 4-year testing phase and the current system as will be deployed to Little Dome C, Antarctica.
A battery operated 15-mm diameter downhole sonde has been designed and constructed for logging. Hole inclination, azimuth, temperature and dust content of the surrounding ice are transmitted to the surface through an optical fiber cable.

Primary author

Dr Jakob Schwander (University of Bern)

Co-authors

Prof. Thomas Stocker (University of Bern) Prof. Hubertus Fischer (University of Bern) Samuel Marending (University of Bern) Remo Walther (University of Bern) Jürg Jost (Spacetek Technology) Hanspeter Moret (University of Bern)

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