Team+4+Design


 * Preliminary Design**

My design is a plug that is inserted into the existing pipe and expands to block up the leak. It is to be made of rubber.

My design was a circular robot made of stainless steel as a frame with foam on the inside to keep it afloat. There is a solar panel on top to keep it powered without having to charge it on shore. There are grids on the sides that suck in the oil and then a coagulant is poured in, making the oil form into clumps. An elevator then lifts up and the oil clumps are pushed into a holding box.

My design would be a land cleaning robot. It would move across the sand scooping up the oil covered sand. The sand would fall back into a chamber. The chamber would fill with water, the oil would rise to the top and the sand would sink the bottom. A door would close about half way in the water containing the oil to the top. A coagulant would be released into the top area with the oil while the sand was put back onto the beach. The oil will become a solid. and then the door will open to a mesh wall. The mesh wall will allow the water to flow by and be reused, while still holding the coagulated oil on top of it. the oil will then be pushed into a container which will later be cleaned out.

Our group was totally split among choosing what part of the BP oil spill to fix. Therefore we had four ideas for four different aspects of the spill. My idea had to do with cleaning the beaches affected. Since oil-infested water is washing up on the shores, the oil is seeping into the sand. My idea was for a mobile, almost car-like vehicle to drive along the beach, scoop up samples of sand, and then heat and release the purified sand. The device would have four wheels to maintain a straight course and safe speed. A shovel device would be on the front picking up samples that would then go through a mesh screen with medium sized openings and then enter a heating device that separates the oil and the remaining sand is released again. The idea was that several vehicles would be going at a time, up and down the shore lines. They would be remote controlled by operators at several locations around the Gulf.