The Voyager II benthic flume is a field instrument designed to collect data on seabed erosion and deposition rates to depths of 200m. The instrument, which was recently successfully deployed to 83m on the UK Dogger Bank shoal as part of the UK NERC-funded CEFAS-Portsmouth University MECS benthic exchange programme, applies a controlled frictional stress to the surface of sediments and sensors measure the seabed erosion.  

Partrac technical director Dr Kevin Black said, 'Because we can apply a controlled tractive force to seabed sediments and measure the erosional-depositional response, we can build up a picture of the vulnerability of specific sediments to erosion. This represents a significant advancement in the field as current approaches involve numerical modeling rather than collection of real world data. We are now in a position to provide clients with quantitative data on erosion potential, a capability hitherto not available within the industry, and we can map this across regions or sea areas of concern.'  

The company's director Peter Wilson highlighted the benefits to industry. 'The offshore industry can save time and potentially considerable sums of money through acquisition of seabed stability information early in the development lifecycle, he said. 'Within Round 2 the offshore wind industry, for example, is developing windfarms on highly mobile coastal sediments.  

‘However, the sediment stability is rarely uniform across the site, and this can have significant engineering and economic consequences with regard to turbine design, turbine location and emplacement of anti-scour measures. In addition, sediment stability presents risk to site survey and installation activities. Our service will generate maps of the scour risk, and using this information offshore developers will be in a better position to assess the engineering and economic risks, and to implement more effective planning for offshore projects.'