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Semi-Annual Newsletter
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Well, 2017 has been full of action so far, hasn't it? There's been a lot of activity here on the Makai Pier and at our Kona offices. Our ocean energy team recently completed our marine heat exchanger R&D and manufacturing facility in Kona. Four subsea cable laying vessels installed MakaiLay. Our Department of Defense client base continues to expand. And finally, our design team saw the completion of one power plant cooling intake in New York, and the design of another in Egypt. We welcomed FOUR new faces to the Makai team, with the goal of hiring two more full time positions plus a couple of summer interns – please forward this to anyone who might be interested!
If you like what you see, please share it with a friend. As always, please feel free to send any feedback to makai@makai.com.
We hope you enjoy!
With Aloha,
The MOE Team
www.makai.com |
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Makai Wins National Small Business Award
 
The U.S. Small Business Administration honored Makai with the Tibbetts Award for excellence in innovation and research.
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Makai is excited to receive a prestigious U.S. national honor for excellence in technology research and development, the Tibbetts Award!
Each year the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) chooses winners of the prestigious Tibbetts Award, recognizing the very best in class of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I and II program participants. Awardees are evaluated on technological innovations that:
- Create jobs and have a visible economic impact,
- Serve federal R&D needs,
- Encourage diverse participation, and
- Increase commercialization of federal R&D.
Makai would like to offer a warm MAHALO to our loyal base of federal customers who have repeatedly put their faith in us to execute on their most difficult R&D projects. This honor would not have been possible without you.
Makai would also like to thank the State of Hawaii, DBEDT, and HTDC for their continued support of Hawaii’s leading SBIR companies. See the State of Hawaii press release for more. |
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Cooling Water Intakes
A rendering of the cooling water intakes that were installed this winter; note the scale of the tiny divers next to the massive intake screens!
The crane and material barge (left) used to install the manifolds (center), pipes and screens. A massive structure with extremely fine screens (right) ensures plenty of water for cooling while protecting the ecosystem.
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We are proud to announce the successful installation of the power plant cooling water system that we have been tracking the last two issues. Since final installation and commissioning in January, the system is now fully operational and supplying water to the power plant!
Some factoids about the cooling water system:
- Supplies 170,000 gallons per minute (~10.7 cubic meters per second) from a lake in New York State
- One of the nation’s first large utility-scale plants to go through the EPA Clean Water Act, Section 316(b) process in its entirety.
- Screens were fine slot (30 thousandth of an inch / 0.75 mm) mechanically cleaned cylindrical wedge-wire screens supplied by Intake Screens Incorporated (ISI), with whom Makai worked closely on the project.
- Makai used an integrated design approach to this system, optimizing the structure through a continuous iteration of CFD (computational fluid dynamics), FEA (finite element analysis), and value engineering on the structural arrangement for constructability, fabrication, and shipping.
- The above design actually inspired this year’s comical Makai Holiday Card! If you haven’t seen the short movie yet, we think it’s worth a laugh.
The final design is hydraulically and structurally efficient, cost-effective, and designed to be easily constructed and installed by marine contractors. With careful planning and coordination, the installation went smoothly and without a hitch. See the full release for more details.
In related news, Makai is pleased to announce the completion of ANOTHER power plant cooling water system design, but this time in Egypt. More details to follow in the next issue...
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Makai Wins Three New R&D Projects
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Makai has been awarded three major technology R&D contracts focused on subsea communications technologies. These projects leverage technology developed by Makai, such as:
- autonomous / unmanned underwater vehicles (AUVs / UUVs) capable of burying and connecting power and data cables,
- integrating new high-strength micro fiber optic (FO) cables,
- an innovative cable handling device for payout and retrieval of micro FO cables, and
- innovative variable-buoyancy floats.
Makai will be designing, building, and testing these novel subsea systems in the coming months. Please contact Makai to learn more. |
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Four Subsea Cable Ships Choose Makai
KT Submarine installing a deep submarine cable in late 2016 using MakaiLay.
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In the last several months, MakaiLay, has been commissioned on four cable laying vessels around the world. KT Submarine (KTS, Korea) recently completed a challenging installation with one of their cable laying vessels, Segero. They also commissioned the software on their other vessel, the Responder, and are currently using it to manage a cable installation in the Pacific. KTS pointed out, “The [MakaiLay] look-ahead feature allows us to keep the cable on the desired route and to maintain the correct bottom slack.”
MakaiLay is also being commissioned on NTT World Engineering Marine Corporation’s (NTTWEM, Japan) newly constructed cable laying vessel Kizuna, after using MakaiLay for 18 years on their other vessel, Subaru. We have noticed that our recently initiated lease-to-own option has also made it easier for new clients to try the software on a lay for a low-cost, as was the case with PT. Bina Nusantara Perkasa’s (BNP, Indonesia) cable ship Nusantara Explorer.
MakaiPlan is the world’s #1 cable route planning and engineering software, with over 300 licenses sold over the last 15 years.
MakaiPlan Pro is powerful and precise 3D, dynamic simulation software used to identify installation risks and prepare a detailed installation plan before ever going to sea.
MakaiLay is the world’s #1 subsea cable installation software. It enables cable ship operators to lay submarine cables with the highest level of accuracy, speed, safety, and reliability possible today, dramatically reducing the risk of cable failures. The software has been used by over 75% of the global fleet of cable ships on countless commercial lays and military installations to successfully install well over 400,000 km of cable worldwide. |
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Heat Exchanger Manufacturing and R&D Facility Completed
Makai installed advanced manufacturing equipment to be used to produce marine-grade heat exchangers at our Ocean Energy Research Center. Installation required removing part of the roof! |
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In late 2016, Makai completed a facility dedicated to the rapid prototyping and manufacture of marine-grade heat exchangers at our Ocean Energy Research Center on the Natural Energy Lab of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) campus. This project was made possible by grants from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in partnership with University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (UH-HNEI), with matching funds from the High Technology Development Corporation’s Manufacturing Assistance Program (MAP).
This new, state-of-the-art facility features advanced manufacturing equipment to be used in fabrication of entirely new and innovative heat exchanger designs. In addition to serving Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plants, these heat exchanger units can be used in a variety of applications, including:
- seawater and lake water cooling for power plants and air conditioning,
- paper pulp mills,
- steel and iron ore mills,
- food & beverage processing plants,
- petrochemical facilities, such as liquid natural gas (LNG) liquefaction,
- desalination, and
- shipboard cooling – especially for the U.S. Navy.
With an increasingly electrified population and concerns about energy efficiency and carbon footprint increasing worldwide, industrial and military users are looking for ways to make more efficient use of their thermal energy resources. Makai’s new heat exchangers are being developed to address these demands. |
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Employee Spotlight:
Michael Eldred
Mechanical Engineer &
Director of Makai's Ocean Energy Research Center
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Mr. Mike Eldred is a mechanical engineer and technical program manager with 18 years’ experience, with 8 years at Makai. His first role at Makai (which continues to this day) was as the chief engineer and designer, construction manager, and operator of the Ocean Energy Research Center (OERC) at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. This facility features the world’s largest currently operational Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) plant, using the temperature gradient between shallow and deep seawater to generate stable, renewable power. Also under Mike’s management at the OERC are a Marine Corrosion Laboratory and a marine heat exchanger manufacturing facility (described above).
At the OTEC plant, Mike leads the structural design, seawater & ammonia piping, hydraulic, thermodynamic, and heat transfer modeling, and sensor & control systems software and hardware design and operation. He leads Makai’s marine heat exchanger R&D and testing efforts of all third-party and Makai proprietary seawater heat exchangers. He also developed control systems for a large marine pipeline handling mechanism, as well as for an autonomous micro-fiber optic cable handling device designed to payout and reel-in multiple kilometers of less than 1mm diameter cables at near full ocean depth.
Previous to joining Makai, Mike was a lead mechanical engineer developing a state-of-the-art adaptive optics instrument for the Subaru Telescope for 5 years. His specialties were high-precision opto-mechanical and motion control system design, fabrication, and testing, extensive finite element analysis modeling, and thermal and vibration analysis.
Mike earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Iowa State University. Mike is a passionate advocate for sustainable renewable energy, and the driving mission of his work is making the world a better place to live for future generations. In his spare time he enjoys surfing, yoga, drumming, and spending time with his wife Ancelyn and his son Mateo. |
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What are you working on?
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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. |
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You received this email because you have subscribed to this newsletter. We respect your time and privacy. We will email you about twice per year. However, if you no longer wish to receive these emails, you may unsubscribe at any time. Call or email us with questions at +1 (808) 259-8871 or makai@makai.com.
Aloha!
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© 2017 Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc.
41-305 Kalanianaole Hwy, Waimanalo, Hawaii 96795 USA
www.makai.com |
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