Makai's February 2016 Newsletter

Keep an Eye on Makai

Semi-Annual Newsletter

ALOHA!
We are hope that 2016 has started out well for you. We at Makai Ocean Engineering are off to a good start. We have continued some of our long-term projects as well as started several new ones. Our ocean energy team is developing a new marine heat exchanger and testing our OTEC power plant; our cable team released a new version of our subsea cable planning and installation software, and has begun work with micro fiber optic cables; and our design team has been busy on a cooling water intake design, as well as a naval architecture design. We got the whole Makai team together a few weeks ago for an annual ‘sharing of ideas’ get together on the Makai research pier and snapped the above company photo.

One last note: we’re hiring! Makai is seeking one Numerical Modeler to join our cable team. To whet your appetite for working at Makai, check out the aerial drone video of our offices on our employment page!

As always, you may expect short, simple updates on some of our cool ocean technologies, twice annually. Please let us know what you think; we're listening. And if you like what you see, please share it with a friend. We hope you enjoy!

With Aloha,

The MOE Team

Cooling Water Intakes for 316(b) Compliance

A snapshot of the structural design and analysis of one cooling water
intake component, showing the large size of the intake structure.

Recently, regulatory authorities have increased enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 316(b) regulations, which regulates facilities that withdraw at least 2 million gallons per day from waters of the U.S. The law aims to reduce the environmental impact of natural cooling water use on the ecosystem by reducing fish and larvae entrainment and impingement. The EPA expects that these regulations will affect more than one thousand electric power plants, pulp and paper mills, chemical plants, iron / steel / aluminum manufacturing, petroleum refineries, and food processing plants across the country.

316(b) can impose engineering challenges for system operators. Makai Ocean Engineering is nearing completion of the final design of an intake retrofit for one of the 316(b) affected plants. This facility operates at over 100,000 gallons per minute, which requires a new array of screen assemblies totaling several thousand square feet of screen area and weighing more than 50 tons.

The project presented numerous challenges including zebra mussel infestation and stringent hydraulic limitations. The complexity required an integrated design approach, combining Makai’s marine engineering and construction experience with state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics, 3D structural design, and finite-element analysis techniques. This multi-disciplinary approach enabled us to optimize a design that is both hydraulically and structurally efficient, but is also cost-effective and readily constructible by marine contractors. Makai’s offshore experience was leveraged to provide solutions for the subsea power and communications cables and connectors.

A team of talented subcontractors and screen vendors has provided submarine surveys, geotechnical foundation designs, and automated screen cleaning solutions. This project builds on several decades of experience Makai has gained in designing ocean and lake water intakes, including the custom cooling water intake for Cornell’s Lake Source Cooling Project, completed in 1999, which provides air conditioning for Cornell University and reduces the energy required for cooling by 86%.

One of the previous generations of the LRT, shown here, was built for the purpose
of launching PISCES-class manned submersibles which are owned by the
Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory.

Launch, Recovery, and Transport (LRT) Vehicle

Makai was recently awarded a contract to design the next generation of submersible Launch Recovery and Transport (LRT) vehicles from a vessel built in 1986 for the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. The LRT is a unique, submersible recovery system designed by Makai that can safely and reliably launch and recover submersibles in rough seas and can provide a platform for their speedy transport over long, open ocean distances. The LRT is a twin-hull platform that acts as a barge during towing. Once on-site, the LRT and the submarine are submerged under the control of a diver pilot and maintained in a stable hover at a depth of 60 feet. With the assistance of the deck crew, the submarine is released from the LRT and begins its dive while the LRT returns to the surface. Makai's new LRT will be significantly larger than previous versions (such as the one picture) and able to accommodate larger submarine vessels.

Micro Fiber Optic Cables

Makai has been working on an exciting new technology to reliably handle micro fiber optic cables in the ocean. These tiny cables can be less than 1 millimeter in diameter and have the capability to rapidly transfer large volumes of data between subsea sensors, vehicles and other assets. In 2014-2015, Makai was awarded a SBIR contract dealing with high-strength thin fiber optic cables to support deeper and longer-lasting sonobuoys. More recently, Makai has developed a device capable of repeatedly paying out and retrieving very long lengths of these tiny cables while carefully level-winding and controlling their tension to prevent damaging the optical integrity of the fibers. Makai sees this as a key enabling technology for establishing short-term, ad-hoc underwater communication networks.

MakaiPlan Pro Version 6.0 Release

In January, Makai released version 6.0 of MakaiPlan Pro, which is a popular software for planning and simulating subsea power and telecom cable installations. The new release includes critical software updates to .NET, ensuring compatibility for our users in the years to come.

MakaiPlan Pro includes the tools of MakaiPlan, which is the industry standard GIS software for performing cable route engineering. In addition, MakaiPlan Pro allows the user to perform powerful and precise 3-D, dynamic simulations of a submarine cable installation. The operator can quickly simulate an entire cable lay in advance from the comfort of the office at up to 50 times faster than real-time. This is useful for developing Ship Installation plans, performing pre-lay and post-lay analysis, and also for operator training. The operator can run advanced simulations for conducting Installation Feasibility Studies and Equipment Selection. A detailed simulation aids installers in understanding how to control cable seabed slack/tension during dynamic cable laying situations such as starts and stops, repeater deployments, sharp alter courses, and dealing with irregular seabed.

Click for all things Cable!

Employee Spotlight:

John Sender, Ph.D.
Senior Physicist

Dr. John Sender joined Makai’s team in 2014. He is the lead physicist and programmer developing the new Makai HD cable modeling software. Dr. Sender leads all aspects of applying this new finite difference model to Makai’s projects dealing with cables in the ocean. In addition, Dr. Sender plays a key role in developing new business areas for Makai within the Department of Defense, and has contributed to several winning proposals since joining the team.

Dr. Sender brings to Makai a wealth of knowledge and experience in research and development, and particularly for Department of Defense work. He was previously a Vice President at another innovative R&D firm focused on infrared optical engineering for communications. In that position, Dr. Sender managed over 40 scientists and engineers and developed new business areas, including authoring over $18 million in winning proposals. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Hawaii (UH) at Manoa in 2000. Previous to that, he spent several years going to sea on research vessels with the UH School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology. Dr. Sender is also a U.S. Army Veteran. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his wife, Susan, and three adult children, Nora, Lily, and Max, and is an avid fan of international soccer.

What are you working on?

If you have a project related to the ocean, we can probably help.
We are nimble, creative, cost-effective, and most importantly, our designs last.
We'd love to discuss your project that might involve:

Subsea Pipe / Cable Systems

Pipeline designs
Cable designs
Micro fiber optic cable systems
Cable planning and installation software and services
Survey support

Energy Systems

Cooling water intake and screen designs
Heat exchangers
Bottoming cycle power plant designs
Energy storage designs
Offshore wind / wave / tidal engineering
District cooling designs
Engineering & economic modeling

Marine Vehicles & Buoys

Underwater vehicle design
Sonobuoy component design
Submarine Launch, Recovery, Transport vehicles
Naval architecture

General Engineering Support

Corrosion R&D and testing
Materials testing
Environmental consulting
Physics-based modeling
Software development
GIS software and services
Value engineering

Please call or email us today for a free consultation about your project.

Contact a Makai Ocean Engineer!