Journal Article
Marine Technology Society Journal, vol. 51, iss. 4, pp. 12-22, 2017
Authors
Xiuyan Liu, Xin Luan, Z. Daniel Deng, Dalei Song, Shengbo Zang, Hua Yang, Jia Xin, Xue Chen
Abstract
AbstractAn autonomous Moored Reciprocating Vertical Profiler (MRVP) has been developed and tested for measuring ocean turbulence. The MRVP is designed to combine the advantages of long-term moored measurements at specified depths with those of short-term ship-supported continuous
profiling performed at high vertical resolution. The profiler is programmed to repeat vertical motions autonomously along the mooring cable based on a buoyancy-driven mechanism. A sea trial has been conducted in the South China Sea to evaluate the performance of the profiler. The shear probe
data are unreliable when the flow past sensors is not sufficiently greater than an estimate of turbulent velocity. For 65% of the dataset, turbulence measurements are of high quality and the magnitude of dissipation rates is up to O(10−10) W kg−1. To minimize
the contamination induced by instrument vibration and improve the estimation of turbulent kinetic energy terms, an advanced cross-spectrum algorithm is implemented to the measured shear data. The corrected spectra agreed well with the empirical Nasmyth spectrum, and dissipation rates had averagely
decreased a factor of 2 and 8 times lower than the raw spectra. The autonomous MRVP is proven to be a stable platform, and the novel upward measurement provides a new perspective for measuring long-term time series of turbulence mixing.
