Vibracoring

Vibracoring

Vibracoring is a method used to extract samples of unconsolidated sediment cores. Vibracoring is a versatile sampling methodology and can work in various water depths, it is most often used in underwater or wetland locations e.g. in a shallow coastal area.

How does a vibracore work?

As vibracoring is usually used in locations with soft sand and mud sediments, it can retrieve saturated core samples of multiple lengths. It retrieves these samples by drilling a barrel, or core tube, into the desired location and omitting low amplitude vibration through the barrel to penetrate the desired sediments. The high-frequency vibration turns its surrounding sediments into a liquid and the barrel retrieves continuous cores from the liquefied sediments.

Benefits of vibracoring

Due to its vibrations, friction between the barrel and sediment is greatly reduced, allowing the vibracore to penetrate deeper into sediment layers. This enables a vibracore to have a higher consistency in core sample recovery, compared to non-vibrating drilling devices. Because of this, vibracoring is often compared to sonic drilling, which has similar continuous coring abilities and the terms vibracoring and sonic drilling are fairly interchangeable.

Another benefit of vibracoring is its adaptability, numerous vibracores are available in multiple sizes meaning projects of all sizes can be serviced by vibracoring. A vibracore often only requires one individual to operate it and is, therefore, a cost-effective and low maintenance sediment sampling method. This is an innovative drilling development that is positively impacting the projects that require vibracoring both economically and environmentally.

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