October 21, 2009

NEPTUNE CANADA

A crane on Alcatel-Lucent’s cable-laying ship, the C/S Lodbrog lifts a bright yellow trawl-resistant frame (TRF) slated for installation.

Innovation and research

Massive ocean observatory finished off Vancouver Island

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

A team of scientists and marine engineers have completed the construction and installation of the world’s largest and most advanced cabled ocean observatory off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

“We have just granted provisional acceptance to Alcatel-Lucent, which is a contractual milestone that gives UVic (The University of Victoria) title to the network,” said Peter Phibbs, associate director engineering and operations with Neptune Canada.

“The installation is complete with Alcatel-Lucent, but there is a little more work to do next summer. The system is operational and UVic will be able to use it.”

Alcatel-Lucent is a European company that lays advanced submarine cable networks to connect continents and remote areas of the world. Phibbs said the concept of using submarine network technology for an ocean observatory was first developed by the University of Washington.

UVic and Alcatel-Lucent took this concept one step further when they signed a contract with the UVic in 2005 to build the infrastructure for Neptune Canada, which is the first regional-scale ocean observatory in the world.

“The Neptune Canada network is an 800 km ring structure or a complete loop that begins and ends in Port Alberni,” said Arnaud De Panafieu, vice-president terminals and system operations for Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine network activity. “The network amplifies and regenerates signals every 60 to100 kilometres, so it can transmit over very long distances. Since the network is only 800 km, it will have only a few repeaters.”

Neptune Canada will equip several areas of scientific interest in the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate with science nodes to bring power and broadband connection to science instruments.

“Along this network, we installed branching units to divert optical cables that go to a spur,” said De Panafieu. “There are six branching units and each has a spur cable about 20 km long.”

The complex and technologically challenging installation process was carried out by the cable ship Lodbrog, operated by Alcatel-Lucent. This work was supported by the research ship Atlantis, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“The biggest challenge of building in deep water is once you get stuff down there, you don’t want to bring it back,” said Phibbs. “Everything is built to last as long as possible. The main challenge is doing all the testing and qualification. There is a whole parcel of technical issues for designing the network, such as corrosion and flooding. The cost of recovery and repair is very high.”

Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility

The Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility’s Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Science was used to lay the cables forming Neptune Canada’s backbone.

The 800-km-long repeatered cable loop and branching units were laid in 2007, which marked the completion of the first phase of construction work.

“In the second phase, a nodule or node was connected to the spurs on the network,” he explained. “The node is a mechanical protection structure, which has a troll resistant frame. It has very heavy steel mechanics and typically weighs about seven tons. The node is sloped on each side so an anchor won’t damage or rip mechanics when it goes over.”

Between July and September 2009, the team used three ships and a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to lower five 13-tonne nodes and more than 400 scientific instruments and sensors to the seafloor. The research ship Thompson, operated by the University of Washington, led the instrument portion of the installation.

Inside each node, there is a big steel cylinder about two metres long and 60 cm in diameter that contains the transmission equipment and an Internet Protocol switch. The cylinder, which can withstand high pressure down to a depth of 3,000 metres, connects to the scientific instruments. Phibbs said a lot of the instruments were purchased locally and the distribution boxes were built by Coquitlam-based Oceanwork.

“The distribution boxes reduce the voltage down to 48 volts, 24 volts and 12 volts for the instruments,” he said. ‘The boxes go between the equipment and the Alcatel-Lucent nodes. We plug the junction boxes into the scientific ports and the instruments plug into the junction boxes.”

A second cylinder or pressure vessel takes care of the power for the scientific equipment. The power is delivered with a unique dual capacity cable that has a fibre optic cable in the middle. All components and instruments are specially designed to withstand intense pressure and the cold, corrosive salt-water environment of the North Pacific. The researchers decide what data to collect and transport it optically to the station in Port Alberni.

The electronics and these two nodes weigh about five tons, so they were packed with floatation material for buoyancy. In the water, these cylinders weight only fifty kilos, so they can be taken easily on board a ship by an ROV for repairs. The ROV will then put the cylinder back into the node. This system for the repair and maintenance of the equipment in the nodes, should allow the ocean observatory to operate for up to 25 years or more.

Much of the infrastructure for NEPTUNE Canada was designed, manufactured and installed by Alcatel-Lucent and its main subcontractors, including MariPro one.

Land-based researchers across Canada and around the world will use NEPTUNE Canada to conduct offshore and deep-sea experiments and receive real-time data without leaving their laboratories and offices. Observations from NEPTUNE Canada will have policy applications in the areas of climate change, hazard mitigation (earthquakes and tsunamis), ocean pollution, port security and shipping, resource development, sovereignty and security, and ocean management.

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