Hydrodynamic analysis of a deep-sea pressure equaliser

Abstract

Deep-sea hydrothermal source investigation utilising water and gas samples to characterise ocean resources requires water sampler, both large and small volume. How to preserve the original captured samples in the sampler during its lifting process to the surface remains challenging. Our research develops a piston type deep-sea pressure equaliser installed in the sampling bottle to solve the pressure problems using pressure self-adaptive principle. This paper describes a new mathematic analysis of the pressure equaliser and carries out its numerical computation accordingly. Two different scenarios i.e. sampling water only and sampling water as well as gas, are selected to evaluate the performance of this pressure equaliser. The result shows that this pressure equaliser is capable of adjusting the pressure properly in the lifting process of the deep-sea water sampling bottle and thus helps to secure the sampling quality. Therefore, the design of pressure equaliser is acceptable.