Optimization of hot-water ice-coring drills

• Published in: Annals of Glaciology
• Main Authors: An Liu, Rusheng Wang, Yang Yang, Liang Wang, Xiao Li, Yazhou Li, Pavel Talalay
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press 2021
• Subjects: Ice-core drilling; hot-water ice drilling; ice core quality; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Nozzle; The Nozzle; Annals of Glaciology; ice core
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2020.63; https://doaj.org/article/cf6b20d53ab94ceb8a2676e1e1720a6b

Hot-water ice-coring drills are often used to recover ice core samples from desirable depths in conjunction with full-scale hot-water drilling systems. However, the recovered cores exhibit varying qualities. The coring performance of a hot-water ice-coring drill depends significantly on the structure of the coring drill head (nozzle angle, diameter and number). To discover the most significant factor affecting ice-coring performance, nine types of drill heads were designed and tested in this study according to the orthogonal test design. Results indicated that the nozzle angle is the most significant factor that affects the coring quality and the optimal angle is ~15°. The number of nozzles is the second most important factor; a large number assists in obtaining ice cores of high quality. The optimal nozzle configuration to recover good quality cores are the following: the nozzle diameter, number of nozzles and nozzle angle are 1 mm, 60 nozzles and 15°, respectively, with the maximum diameter and 2 mm, 60 nozzles and 15°, respectively, with the maximum length.