Seabed Base Buoyancy Stabilization for Transducer Orientation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current seabed base deployment methods fail to ensure a stable posture on the seabed, leading to poor data quality due to uncertainties in seabed topography and adverse sea conditions, particularly in high-turbidity waters like the Bohai, Yellow, and East China Seas, where visual confirmation is impossible and manual adjustments are unreliable.
Innovation Solution
An automatic stable posture seabed base system with a buoyancy body and adjustable limiters ensures the transducer remains vertically oriented, using permeable or threaded plugs to control seawater flow and buoyancy, allowing for reliable deployment under varying sea conditions without the need for high-powered cranes or precise tidal timing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the seabed base is released using traditional crane hoisting methods, then the deployment process can be completed, but the transducer cannot maintain vertical orientation due to seabed topography uncertainty and wave-current effects
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a buoyancy body connected to the seabed base that provides upward buoyant force to counterbalance the gravitational force on the base. This counterweight mechanism automatically adjusts the base's position and orientation on the seabed, ensuring the transducer maintains vertical orientation without requiring complex manual intervention or precise timing with tidal conditions.
2Manufacturing precision
If manual cable retraction is used to adjust seabed base posture, then some posture control can be achieved, but the workload and time consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a self-adjusting mechanism where the buoyancy body automatically responds to the seabed base's position and orientation. When the base lands on the seabed, the buoyant force automatically pulls the base into the correct vertical orientation without requiring personnel to manually retract the cable multiple times. This self-service capability significantly reduces both the workload and time required for deployment.
3Reliability
If deployment is delayed until ideal sea conditions occur, then transducer orientation can be maintained, but the observation period and project timeline are extended
Solution Approach 1:
The patent incorporates preliminary action by pre-assembling the buoyancy body and connection mechanisms on the seabed base before deployment. The buoyancy body is pre-positioned and configured to automatically engage and adjust the base's orientation upon contact with the seabed. This preliminary preparation eliminates the need to wait for ideal sea conditions, as the system is designed to maintain vertical orientation regardless of wave or current conditions, thereby improving deployment efficiency without compromising data quality.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system guarantees consistent, high-quality data acquisition by maintaining transducer orientation, reducing the workload for releasing personnel and ships, and enabling deployment in less-than-ideal sea conditions, thus extending observation periods with improved engineering construction parameters.
Implementation Method 1
a buoyancy body installed at a transducer of the first observation device, and a buoyancy of the buoyancy body is larger than a mass of the first observation device, so that the first observation device may float in the cover body after the cover body is filled with water
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are an automatic stable posture seabed base and a releasing method, belonging to the technical field of ocean observation. The automatic stable posture seabed base includes an accommodating body with an inner cavity for accommodating the first observation device and a seawater, and the accommodating body has first through holes for the seawater to enter and outflow the inner cavity; plugging members blocked at the first through holes to close or semi-close the first through holes; and a buoyancy body installed at a transducer of the first observation device, and a buoyancy of the buoyancy body is larger than a mass of the first observation device, so that the first observation device may float in the cover body after the cover body is filled with water, and a posture of the transducer in the cover body always keeps vertically to the sea surface.