Mechanical Ice Drilling Technology

This book provides a review of mechanical ice drilling technology, including the design, parameters, and performance of various tools and drills for making holes in snow, firn and ice. The material presents the historical development of ice drilling tools and devices from the first experience taken place more than 170 years ago to the present day and focuses on the modern vision of ice drilling technology. It is illustrated with numerous pictures, many of them published for the first time. This book is intended for specialists in ice core sciences, drilling engineers, glaciologists, and can be useful for high-school students and other readers who are very interested in engineering and cold regions technology.

This book provides a review of thermal ice drilling technologies, including the design, parameters, and performance of various tools and drills for making holes in ice sheets, ice caps, mountain glaciers, ice shelves, and sea ice. In recent years, interest in thermal drilling technology has increased as a result of subglacial lake explorations and extraterrestrial investigations. The book focuses on the latest ice drilling technologies, but also discusses the historical development of ice drilling tools and devices over the last 100 years to offer valuable insights into what is possible and what not to do in the future. Featuring numerous figures and pictures, many of them published for the first time, it is intended for specialists working in ice-core sciences, polar oceanography, drilling engineers and glaciologists, and is also a useful reference for researchers and graduate students working in engineering and cold-regions technology.

This book provides a review of thermal ice drilling technologies, including the design, parameters, and performance of various tools and drills for making holes in ice sheets, ice caps, mountain glaciers, ice shelves, and sea ice. In recent years, interest in thermal drilling technology has increased as a result of subglacial lake explorations and extraterrestrial investigations. The book focuses on the latest ice drilling technologies, but also discusses the historical development of ice drilling tools and devices over the last 100 years to offer valuable insights into what is possible and what not to do in the future. Featuring numerous figures and pictures, many of them published for the first time, it is intended for specialists working in ice-core sciences, polar oceanography, drilling engineers and glaciologists, and is also a useful reference for researchers and graduate students working in engineering and cold-regions technology.

This book aims to provide recent information on advances in drilling technology. The use of advanced machines, appropriate strategies and special drilling tools can signifi cantly reduce the machining time required for drilling operations, and consequently the production costs, and improve the quality of the holes produced. For these reasons an improvement of the drilling technology is very important for the modern manufacturing industries. This book can be used as a research book for fi nal undergraduate engineering course or at postgraduate level. It can also serve as a useful reference for academics, researchers, mechanical, industrial, production, manufacturing and materials engineers, professionals in drilling technology and related matters.

Advances in Terrestrial Drilling: Ground, Ice, and Underwater includes the latest drilling and excavation principles and processes for terrestrial environments. The chapters cover the history of drilling and excavation, drill types, drilling techniques and their advantages and associated issues, rock coring including acquisition, damage control, caching and transport, and data interpretation, as well as unconsolidated soil drilling and borehole stability. This book includes a description of the basic science of the drilling process, associated processes of breaking and penetrating various media, the required hardware, and the process of excavation and analysis of the sampled media. Describes recent advances in terrestrial drilling. Discusses drilling in the broadest range of media including terrestrial surfaces, ice and underwater from shallow penetration to very deep. Provides an in-depth description of key drilling techniques and the unified approach to assessing the required tools for given drilling requirements. Discusses environmental effects on drilling, current challenges of drilling and excavation, and methods that are used to address these. Examines novel drilling and excavation approaches. Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen is the Supervisor of the Electroactive Technologies Group (http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/) and a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab/Caltech, Pasadena, CA. His research is focused on electro-mechanics including planetary sample handling mechanisms, novel actuators that are driven by such materials as piezoelectric and EAP (also known as artificial muscles), and biomimetics. Dr. Kris Zacny is a Senior Scientist and Vice President of Exploration Systems at Honeybee Robotics, Altadena, CA. His expertise includes space mining, sample handling, soil and rock mechanics, extraterrestrial drilling, and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU).

The problem of ice destruction comes most frequently to our attention in engineering glaciology and ice engineering because it is essential in the solution of many problems in the polar regions of the Earth. Ice destruction (like the destruction of any other material, in principle) is a complex problem at the junction of solid-state physics, continuum mechanics, and materials science. Ice, particularly sea ice, is characterized by known anomalies that can be explained by the simultaneous occurrence of solid, liquid and gaseous phases. Even minor temperature fluctuations cause changes in the relationship of these phases and, as a consequence, change the physico-mechanical properties of ice. New hydraulic engineering tasks, associated with the destruction of such a complex material, demand continuous improvement of methods and techniques. The present authors have brought these together in a form which is convenient for a wide range of users. This book covers only local ice destruction, by means other than icebreakers, requiring comparatively low consumption of power in proportion to the volume and mass of destroyed ice. Problems of natural ice destruction under the influence of solar radiation, tidal, wind and wave factors are not dis cussed. Mechanical and thermal methods were the first of many to be used for ice destruction. Their application has involved a greater num ber of techniques, so the first two chapters are the longest.