Development
of marine adhesives and markers for submersible research vessel
ALVIN. New elective course, BS-2405, to be offered in September
2001.
Enrollment
limited to 16 MMA students and 12-24 UCCRTS students.
Course
credit: 3 credit elective = 2 hours lab + 2 hours lecture/discussion
Requirements:
Any MMA student who has successfully completed two or more
semesters of work at MMA with a 2.0 or higher GPA is eligible
to participate. Juniors and Seniors at UCCRTS are eligible
to take the lab portion of the course. There will be two UCCRTS
groups, and each group will travel to MMA every other week.
UCCRTS students may elect to take the entire course
for college credit under the Dual Enrollment Program. Such
students must provide their own transportation to the weekly
lecture/discussions and be able to fit the course into their
schedules. UCCRTS will provide weekly bus transportation to
the labs.
MMA
instructor: Dr. Sichel
WHOI
partner: Dr. Tivey
Students
will prepare and test marine adhesives and develop an applicator
for undersea use. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
would like to develop an underwater marking instrument, paint
applicator, or adhesive applicator which could be operated
by the grappling arm of the submersible vessel ALVIN. When
ALVIN is on an undersea geophysics mission, there is need
for a method for making markings or attaching tags to rocks
of geophysical interest.
Three
student teams will participate in the project. The Mass. Maritime
Academy students will be the project engineers. Students from
the Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School will attend each
lab at MMA and will play the role of technicians, working
under the guidance of Dr. Sichel and the MMA students. Students
at Bristol Community College (BCC) enrolled in a course on
strength of materials will play the role of a testing laboratory.
They will test the adhesives prepared by the MMA students.
The
lab portion of the course involves preparing and life-testing
the adhesives. The samples will be deployed off the MMA dock,
and observed weekly for life-testing. A paint/adhesive applicator
will be designed and built. Students will attend tutorials
on searching the patent literature, use of Excel spreadsheets
and software for data analysis, and polymer science relevant
to the adhesives used in the project. There will be several
outside speakers, including an ALVIN pilot, a WHOI geophysicist,
and an expert on epoxies.
This
project is supported in part by the National Science Foundation.
Follow this link to see the
grant abstract.
In
lieu of a final exam, a final report will be prepared by the
class, with the tasks divided among the students participating,
including the lab reports from BCC. Copies of the final report
will be delivered to the National Science Foundation, which
provides funding, to the Office of Naval Research, which has
an interest in the technology, and to the manufacturers of
the epoxies and adhesives used in the project. The students
will make an oral report as a team, with all participants
present. Parts of the final report as well as information
about the course will be published on the web at a site linked
to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s website, www.whoi.edu.
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