Task Overview

Site Data
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Task Overview

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Industry Challenge: Pilot testing for in-stream turbine developers has been costly and time-consuming, often due to the burdens imposed by regulatory monitoring. This has partly resulted from gaps in knowledge and understanding between developers and regulatory agencies and has contributed to delays, unrealistic expectations on both sides, and costly measurements that impair the economics of demonstration and commercial systems. Conversations between UW, device and site developers, and regulatory agencies indicate that this is a global concern and is not locale-specific.

Approach: The Center proposes to develop a modular and scalable instrumentation package for cost-effective environmental and performance monitoring for in-stream turbines. This package will be developed through in-water testing and will be aligned with international standards. The relatively deep water and high velocities at tidal energy sites represent a distinct departure from traditional oceanography and will require new approaches and new thinking. The primary goal is to address environmental and performance concerns in a cost-effective manner that meets the needs of developers, regulators, and researchers. The Center will test instrumentation options for:

  • Measuring device performance in sheared, turbulent flows.
  • Quantifying the structure of flow around turbines including turbulence, shear, and device wake.
  • Measuring noise, both ambient and device generated.
  • Monitoring of fish and marine mammals.

A key goal during the first few years will be to establish guidelines for efficient measurement protocols which package multiple, complimentary diagnostics into a single ship-mounted or bottom-mounted platform.

This task will engage the technical and creative capabilities of the Applied Physics Laboratory, Oceanography, and Mechanical Engineering. APL's involvement brings to bear significant equipment and measurement capabilities (e.g. ADCP and ADV), as well as the potential to exploit overlap with other concurrent projects. An example of this is airborne infrared measurements to characterize estuarine dynamics. Center personnel will be involved in the creation of standards for device testing. Development of the tidal energy instrumentation package at UW will leverage the experience of the Center's industrial partners and be trialed in conjunction with industry-led device testing in the Puget Sound.

The guiding principle is to allow site and device developers to build-out wherever they find compelling reasons to do so. This will allow developers to test devices and collect high quality data where there is long-term potential for commercial facilities.

Outcomes and Impacts:

  • Research: Measurements of in-stream characteristics in naturally occurring high speed flows.
  • Industry: Guidelines for cost-effective monitoring of operations for in-stream turbines; Guidance on siting in turbulent flows with respect to performance and fatigue life.
  • Regulatory: Guidance for statutory monitoring programs.

Site Data

Data and analysis generated by these activities may be found on task subpages accessed through navigational panel. Due to intellectual property considerations, the release of some project data may require consultation with Center partners.

Admiralty Inlet, Washington

The goal of this project is presently to collect baseline data required for permitting of a pilot scale tidal energy array in Admiralty Inlet.

Surveys conducted to date - click on links to view full survey information and data

Shipboard Surveys Bottom Deployments

April 2009 (Shipboard)

This was the initial survey of Admiralty Inlet aboard the R/V Jack Robertson. Many pieces of equipment were evaluated and the Sea Spider was deployed for two days as a test deployment, recovered successfully, and re-redeployed for extended measurements.

Readying Sea Spider for initial deployment

  • Duration: April 6-9, 2009
  • Survey Type: Shipboard survey
  • Survey Platform: R/V Jack Robertson (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, background noise, water quality, hydroacoustics, ROV video
  • Summary Report: Forthcoming
  • Cruise Pictures (1): Picasa Web Album
  • Cruise Pictures (2): Picasa Web Album
  • Cruise Pictures (3): Picasa Web Album
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity April 6-9, 2009 (28 tracks) .zip archive (44 MB)
 Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
Hydroacoustics Contact Brian Polagye for access to data Hydroacoustic measurements for fish and marine mammal abundance
Water Quality Sampling April 6-7,2009 (4 casts) .zip archive (4 kB) Quantities measured at discrete depths:
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • Turbidity
  • Total phosphoros and nitrogen
  • Nutrients
  • Chlrophyll
  • Salinity
Water Quality Casts April 7, 2009 (2 casts) .zip archive (1 MB)
 Quantities measured over entire water column:
  • Salinity
  • Temperature
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • pH
Background Noise Recording 1: ambient noise .wav (8 MB)
Recording 2: shipping traffic .wav (8 MB)
Contact Chris Bassett for access to raw data 		Study of background noise levels at various locations in Admiralty Inlet
ROV Video Highlights Video (3.5 minutes) .m4v (80 MB)
Deployment .divx (4 MB)
Survey (65m depth) .divx (23 MB)
Survey (80m depth, part 1) .divx (4 MB)
Survey (80m depth, part 2) .divx (2 MB)
Survey (80m depth, part 3) .divx (24 MB)
 Video collected during ROV survey at two sites of different depths within the survey area.

May 2009 (Shipboard)

This survey was primarily structured to recover the Sea Spider, add new instrumentation, and redeploy it within the project area. During this time, shipboard ADCP measurements and water quality samples were also obtained.

  • Duration: May 19-20, 2009
  • Survey Type: Shipboard survey
  • Survey Platform: R/V Jack Robertson (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity and water quality
  • Summary Report: Forthcoming
  • Cruise Pictures (1): Picasa Web Album
  • Cruise Pictures (2): Picasa Web Album
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity May 19-20, 2009 (16 tracks) .zip archive (22 MB)
 Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
Water Quality Casts May 19, 2009 (2 casts) .zip archive (0.6 MB)
 Quantities measured over entire water column:
  • Salinity
  • Temperature

August 2009 (Shipboard)

This survey repeated most of the measurements made during April, recovered the Sea Spider, further upgraded the instrumentation package, and redeployed the package.

  • Duration: August 3-5, 2009
  • Survey Type: Shipboard survey
  • Survey Platform: R/V Jack Robertson (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, water quality, background noise, ROV video
  • Summary Report: Forthcoming
  • Cruise Pictures: Picasa Web Album
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity August 3-5, 2009 (30 tracks) .zip archive (34 MB)
 Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
Water Quality Casts Data processing in progress... Quantities measured over entire water column:
  • Salinity
  • Temperature
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • pH
  • Chlrophyll
  • Turbidity
Water Quality Sampling Data processing in progress... Quantities measured at discrete depths:
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • Turbidity
  • Total phosphoros and nitrogen
  • Nutrients
  • Chlrophyll
  • Salinity
Background Noise Contact Chris Bassett for access to data Study of background noise levels at various locations in Admiralty Inlet
ROV Survey Survey .mpg (531 MB) ROV camera footage from deployment in 50-60m water depth in southeast corner of project area

November 2009 (Shipboard)

This survey repeated the standard suite of measurements, recovered the Sea Spider, serviced instrumentation, and redeployed the package. A drifting spar buoy was also deployed to assist in measurements of ambient noise.

  • Duration: November 10-12, 2009
  • Survey Type: Shipboard survey
  • Survey Platform: R/V Jack Robertson (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, water quality, background noise
  • Summary Report: Forthcoming
  • Cruise Pictures: Picasa Web Album
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity Data processing in progress... Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
Water Quality Casts November 10-11, 2009 (9 casts) .zip archive (2.8 MB)
 Quantities measured over entire water column:
  • Salinity
  • Temperature
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • pH
  • Chlrophyll
Water Quality Sampling Data processing in progress... Quantities measured at discrete depths:
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • Turbidity
  • Total phosphoros and nitrogen
  • Nutrients
  • Chlrophyll
  • Salinity
Background Noise Data processing in progress... Study of background noise levels at various locations in Admiralty Inlet

April 2009 (Test Deployment)


Sea Spider outfitted with ADCP, recording hydrophone, and CTD sensor

  • Duration: April 6-8, 2009
  • Survey Type: Stationary survey (test deployment)
  • Survey Platform: Sea Spider (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, background noise, water depth, temperature
  • Sea Spider Construction and Testing: Picasa Web Album
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity ADCP data (.mat 7 MB)
Header information
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
  • Velocity (u, v, w)
  • Beam correlation
  • Backscatter intensity
  • Instrument configuration
Background Noise Contact Chris Bassett for access to data Recordings of background noise at Sea Spider deployment depth
Pressure and Temperature Logger data (.txt 12 kB) Time series of water pressure and temperature

April - May 2009 (Stationary Deployment)

  • Duration: April 9-May 18, 2009
  • Survey Type: Stationary survey (40 days)
  • Survey Platform: Sea Spider (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, water depth, salinity, temperature
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity ADCP data (.mat 8 MB)
Header information
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
  • Velocity (u, v, w)
  • Beam correlation
  • Backscatter intensity
  • Instrument configuration
Background Noise No data Hydrophone not enabled during deployment
Pressure, Salinity, and Temperature Logger data (.txt 402 kB) Times series of temperature, salinity, and pressure
Pressure and Temperature Logger data (.txt 211 kB) Time series of water pressure and temperature

May - August 2009 (Stationary Deployment)

  • Duration: May 20-August 3, 2009
  • Survey Type: Stationary survey (75 days)
  • Survey Platform: Sea Spider (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, water depth, salinity, temperature, underwater noise, echolocations, fish tags
  • Dive camera footage of sea spider deployment .mp4 (66 MB)
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity ADCP data (velocity and ancillary - 3 parts) (.zip 176 MB)
ADCP data (velocity only) (.zip 187 MB)
Header information
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
  • Velocity (u, v, w)
  • Beam correlation
  • Backscatter intensity
  • Instrument configuration
Background Noise Contact Chris Bassett for access to data Hydrophone recording background noise at 80 kHz sampling rate
Pressure, Salinity, and Temperature Logger data (.txt 0.8 MB) Times series of temperature, salinity, and pressure
Echolocations Contact Jim Thomson or Brian Polagye for access to data Chelonia TPod recording porpoise echolocation events
Fish Tags Detection data (.txt 3 kB) VEMCO fish tag hydrophone recording unique fish tags in close proximity to deployment

August - November 2009 (Stationary Deployment)

  • Duration: August 5-November 11, 2009
  • Survey Type: Stationary survey (98 days)
  • Survey Platform: Sea Spider (University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab)
  • Measurements: Velocity, water depth, salinity, temperature, underwater noise, echolocations, fish tags
Study Type Download Link Description
Velocity ADCP data (.mat 76 MB)
Header information
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements of three dimensional velocity
  • Velocity (u, v, w)
  • Beam correlation
  • Backscatter intensity
  • Instrument configuration
Background Noise Sample files awaiting data processing... Hydrophone recording background noise at 80 kHz sampling rate
Pressure, Salinity, and Temperature Logger data (.txt 1 MB) Times series of temperature, salinity, and pressure
Echolocations Contact Jim Thomson or Brian Polagye for access to data Chelonia CPod (digital) and TPod (analog) recording porpoise echolocation events
Fish Tags Awaiting data processing... VEMCO fish tag hydrophone recording unique fish tags in close proximity to deployment

Last Updated: 11/19/09 Questions? Contact the Center