LEARN we all

What if you took a year-long course that allowed you to con- duct advanced research for an actual client, involved profes- sional-grade experience in team- work and communication, and often resulted in patents or jobs? Well, then you’d be in our Clinic Program. Here’s what it’s like to work on a real-life problem that needs a solution—now.

AN URGENT NEED

The six-member SEAmagine Clinic team (juniors and seniors) addressed a serious problem the United States is currently facing in the Gulf of Mexico: how to clean up underwater oil spills. Most oil recovery methods have been developed for surface oil. The current method to recover underwater oil employs divers, who manually scour the polluted area in pitch blackness, sucking up water and oil with vacuum hoses attached to pumps on the surface. This approach has serious limitations: divers have a maximum depth; can stay underwater for a limited time; and become covered in oil themselves, which hinders their work and is just yucky.

A CAPABLE TEAM SEAmagine requested a vacuum system that could be operated from inside a submarine, allowing for deeper and longer clean-up efforts. The HMC Clinic team had to devise a feedback system that could recognize when the vacuum hose was taking in oil as opposed to water.

A CLEVER DESIGN

Their feedback system had three sensors: a hydrophone, which provides an audio signal from the vacuum nozzle head; an ultrasonic sensor, which measures travel time of an ultrasonic pulse to detect non-water material; and a pressure/temperature sensor, which takes differential pressure readings to indicate changes in flow. Along the way, they acquired skills in mechanical design, control systems and fluid mechanics—not to mention teamwork.

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION A robotic arm is attached to the submarine, from which an operator can control the vacuum hose, which is attached to a surface pump. With the data from the team’s feedback system, the operator can determine when oil is being recovered and can then effectively recover oil for longer periods of time and at deeper levels than human divers.

8 H A R V E Y M U D D C O L L E G E | p r o f i l e s

CLINIC

in a yellow submarine

HMC PROFILE CLIENT: SEAmagine HYDROSPACE CORPORATION, SAN DIEGO, CA

PROJECT NOVEL OIL RECOVERY SENSOR SYSTEMS

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