SAMCoT - Annual Report 2015

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73 SAMCoT • ANNUAL REPORT 2015
OATRC2015
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU) and The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat
(SPRS) established in 2012 a collaboration in polar
research under the umbrella of the memorandum of
understanding “Nordic Cooperation in Polar Research”
signed on January 29, 2010. NTNU works with the devel-
opment of robust technology necessary for sustainable
exploration and exploitation of the valuable and vulnerable
Arctic region. SPRS is a government agency that promotes
and co-ordinates Swedish polar research including follow-
ing and planning research and development, as well as
organizing and leading research expeditions to the Arctic
and Antarctic regions.
A manifestation of the collaboration between NTNU and
SPRS is the two research cruises which were performed
with the Swedish icebreaker Oden in the autumn of 2012
and 2013 to the waters northeast of Greenland. These
cruises named “Oden Arctic Technology Research Cruise
2012/2013 (OATRC2012/2013)” were organised as SAMCoT
associated projects with financial support from Statoil.
In the autumn of 2015, NTNU and SPRS performed their
third research cruise, this time involving the Swedish
icebreakers Oden and Frej in the international waters north
of Svalbard. The cruise was called “Oden Arctic Technology
Research Cruise 2015 (OATRC2015)”. OATRC2015 was fully
financed by the ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
(URC). The participants in the research cruise were 62
persons. The cruise started on the 18th of September of
2015 from Longyearbyen and the icebreakers (Oden and
Frej) returned to Longyearbyen 13 days later on the 2nd
of October. The track of the research cruise is depicted in
Figure to the right.
The overall objective of OATRC2015 was to perform a safe
cruise collecting highly valuable scientific data and to
perform full-scale field trials for testing of key technolo-
gies in the realm of improving Arctic HSE practice. The
scientific scope of OATRC2015 is summarised as follows:
• Collection of full-scale data necessary to build, calibrate
and validate numerical models for floaters in ice
• Collection of full-scale data necessary to build, calibrate
and validate numerical models for Ice Management (IM)
operations
• Collection of data relevant for health, safety and environ-
mental research.
OATRC2015 was a very successful research cruise. It gave
many of the PhD students in SAMCoT valuable full-scale
data for their research. In particular, the opportunity given
by two icebreakers co-working on ice management was of
high value.
Figure: Tracks of Oden and Frej, 18.09.2015-02.10.2015.