Establishment of the New C-CORE Centrifuge Centre

Abstract

The C-CORE Centrifuge Centre was completed and commissioned in May, 1993. Located on the campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, this new facility physically links C-CORE (Centre for Cold Ocean Resources Engineering) and the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, both of which will have close working relationships with the Centrifuge Centre. This centre is a new two-story building which was designed especially for and dedicated to centrifuge modelling. At the heart of the facility is an Acutronic 680-2 centrifuge similar to the one at the Laboratoire Centrale des Ponts et Chaussées in Nantes, France. The machine is 5.5 metres in radius and can carry a payload of 2200 kg to 100 g or a payload of 650 kg to 200 g. Models up to 1.1 by 1.4 m in plan and 1.1 m in height can be accommodated on the St. John’s machine. The machine is the largest of its kind in Canada. A custom-built 7 kW refrigeration unit supplies coolant down to a temperature of -35 °C to the experimental package through two of the centrifuge’s six rotary joints. Currently, this is the only machine in North America with this capability. The other rotary joints are used to supply 200 bars of hydraulic pressure and 10 bars of pneumatic pressure. The electrical slip ring stack comprises: 64# - 1 amp signal lines; 8# - 15 amp power lines; a 40 kW, 3-phase, 80 amp, power supply; and 6 coaxial channels.