R&DE team sets sail for Antarctic

PUNE, Dec 22: The 18th Antarctic expedition team from Research and Development Establishment (Engrs) Dighi, has set sail from the Goa Har...

PUNE, Dec 22: The 18th Antarctic expedition team from Research and Development Establishment (Engrs) Dighi, has set sail from the Goa Harbour Port to the India’s Antarctic station `Maitri’ on December 14.

The team consisting of 55 scientists and engineers, army personnel from various national institutions will participate in various scientific and logistic programmes. The team is led by Ajay Dhar, an Antarctic geomagnetic researcher. R & DE will continue the on-going logistics and scientific projects including some new experiments on fuel cell and health monitoring of generating sets.

The experiments on electricity generation using improved fuel cell technology in association with M/s SPIC Science Foundation, Chennai. The fuel cell employs hydrogen and oxygen as fuel to generate electricity without causing any pollution to the environment. Advanced software based system will be installed to monitor the condition/health of the running generating sets.

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The R & DE team consisting of V S Shinde and R K Pandkar will also gather data on sub-soil profile of area around Maitri and carry out strain measurement of structures for creating data-base for structural stability.

Presently, a team of 25 members are wintering at `Maitri’ , the Indian Antarctic station under the leadership of K R Sivan, a scientist of R & DE (Engrs). The team has completed work on the construction of a medical inspection room, an underground shelter for installation of seismological equipment in addition to carry out routine maintenance of the station and life saving equipment. The task for Antarctic has been guided by the director M R Joshi.