Enhanced Hot Water Drill Season Drill Operations Overview Berkeley Meeting March 19-23, 2005

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Talk Outline:  Brief overview of the season’s achievements  Drill setup and commissioning  Drilling  Camp Breakdown  Personnel  Schedule  Interaction with Raytheon  Plans to resolve issues and make improvements for 05/06 season.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Season Achievements  Set up and commissioned a very complex piece of equipment in one field season.  Gained valuable data about system performance and required improvements.  Gained valuable operational experience with the system.  Gained an insight into the scheduling requirements.  Managed to drill and instrument a hole.  Disassemble and winterize the drill.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Drill Setup and Commissioning  MDS setup completed ahead of schedule  MDS fit out went smoothly and faster than expected.  Rod well start up was slower than planned for.  Hose winding went slower than expected.  Hose did not lay properly on the hose reel.  Constant requirement for fork lift to change spools.  Some shifts did not have enough personnel.  Work began to slip behind schedule just before Christmas.  Coincided with testing and commissioning phase.  A lot of people weren’t familiar with system.  We had equipment and reliability issues.  Some shifts had hands full just maintaining system operation.  Some required personnel had not yet arrived.  Weather delayed 4 personnel, including key personnel for a week.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Firn Drilling  Start of drilling was not greatly affected by CEE delay.  Potential for delay if weather hadn’t intervened.  Firn drilling proved fairly slow.  hours to firn drill  Possibly not getting enough heat transfer between firn drill and ice face.  Progress was stop/ start.  Drill bulb hangs on ice in hole.  Can do more trials next season.  May have to firn drill with main drill

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Main Drilling  Fact is the drill is capable of drilling holes to 2500m.  We can and did achieve full thermal power.  Melting performance matches thermal models.  Demonstrated drill can drill and ream in one operation.  Hose/ Cable tensioning algorithm worked.  Basic design is sound  Need to work on some reliability issues  Need some modifications

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Main Drilling  Main drilling hampered by drill speed issues.  Drill stem couplers proved difficult to fit together.  Difficult to start  Required over tightening to fit properly  Inadequate tower height made installing drill head difficult.  Lack of consistent heat output from drill caused slow downs.  Issue that may have been a factor in first hole problems and weight stack loss:-  Inexperience with system  Possibly an E-stop situation  Lack of familiarity with display system  Ordinary stainless steel, rather than hardened bolts, used on some stack couplers.  Overcrowding in the control booth.  Accident caused significant delays.  Situation was rectified and new procedures written.  Moving sites was untested this season.  Could take up to 2 days.  Anchors on some equipment not necessary.  There is room for other improvement.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Camp Breakdown  Went to schedule  Had to improvise with surface hose storage to meet schedule.  How buried will hose get?  Biggest concern was freezing of main hose or surface hoses.  Submersible pumps proved difficult to remove.  Went back to two shifts and a skeleton 3 rd shift to have an effective number of people per shift.  Went to one shift once water was completely flushed from system.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Personnel Issues  Great Crew  Dedicated with great perseverance.  Need them back.  Not enough people  Lost one person early on in season.  Illness took a toll early on in season.  From around mid Dec. there were not enough people to maintain 3 shifts.  Working on getting more drillers.  Shifts need a rethink  There was evidence of burnout. Need to reduce work hours. Better plan shift times  Must have enough people per shift to allow meal breaks.  Need to plan the arrival of staff with particular talents.  Need to clearly inform staff of job expectations before they get to the ice.  Need to make the job more attractive.  Could offer seasonal drillers more incentives. Some off season work. Offer medical insurance

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Scheduling  Schedule was a great help in knowing what to do.  Refit of MDS’ was completed quicker than scheduled.  Some equipment arrived in a different order to schedule.  Not really a problem  Some equipment which was required early was scheduled to arrive later.  Schedule tracking was done haphazardly from mid Dec.  May need to consider a dedicated schedule tracker  Daily work sheets

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Interaction with Raytheon  Went exceedingly well.  Tom Hutching and Jay Bollinger were excellent interfaces between IceCube and Raytheon.  Support was readily available when requested.  Did not utilize electricians and UT’s as much as planned for in schedule.  Vehicle support was available as soon as possible after a request.  Delays were experienced on occasions.  Sometimes during night shift the forks were not operating  Need to consider allowing IceCube personnel to drive forks.  Preferably need to consider having a dedicated IceCube fork if at all possible.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, SES drill issues and improvements  Plan to drill up to 10 holes.  Possible fuel shortage  Issues to be resolved:  Drill speed limitations  Motor controller reliability  Heater and safety system reliability  Condensate system collection improvement  Network reliability  Computer user interface improvement  Improvement to drill system and main camp:  Place electrical cable tails on all submersible pumps.  Brake on Rod well winch.  A more robust sheave assembly over the Rod well hole  Provide a large tent as DNF storage and office work space.

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Tower Operations site improvements  Improvements to tower site set up.  Improvements to Return water pump winches. Electrical slip ring on cable reel? Improve braking system.  Reduce number of anchors.  Improve anchor design on required anchors  Provide reel stop switch inside TOS.  Install guide rollers on drill cable sheaves to prevent cable jumping,

Enhanced Hot Water Drill – 2004/5 Season Drill Ops.Mar 19-23, Tower operations site improvements  Reduce number of cables by making cable tails for main hose and cable reels.  Investigate is 4-100Amp cables to tower site are really necessary? Power TOW from TOS?  Investigate if a generator at Tower site is feasible?