Heat Flow

A team of scientists from FIELAX has submitted a manuscript about the variability of sediment temperatures and the so-called 2K-criterion to the Elsevier journal 'Applied Thermal Engineering'. The manuscript: /Temperatures in shallow marine sediments: Influence of thermal properties, seasonal forcing, and man-made heat sources/ was accepted today and is available under the following link:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359431116312364

Highlights of this article are:

• Sediment thermal properties are highly variable.
• Seasonal forcing causes large spatial and temporal sediment temperature variations.
• Power cable temperatures strongly depend on thermal properties of a given site.
• The 2K-criterion is not suitable to detect man-made heat injection.

FIELAX likes to announce the successful performance of a heat flow measurement in a water depth of more than 5400m. On board the RV Investigator, FIELAX has performed heat flow measurements in the Bight Basin (Offshore South Australia) for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in cooperation with Chevron. The deepest station measurment was performed in 5432m water depth, a new record for FIELAX and our equipment.

Within the project ModelHeat (funded by 'Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung') FIELAX developed a three-dimensional model to calculate temperature fields in marine sediments or onshore soil. Given inputs are measured thermal properties and approximated seasonal temperature deviations of the water/air. Read more

In partnership with Marine Sampling Holland and Wiertsema & Partners, we have broadened our portfolio of HeatFlow measurements. The well proven technology of in-situ measurements of thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal capacity can now be used onshore at practically unlimited depth. Using the drilling technology of Wiertsema & Partners, the system can be brought down to the desired depth and measure these thermal parameters up to 5m downwards. Read more