APPENDIX A 



A DEVICE FOR CUTTING SEDIMENT CORE LINERS 

 (from an unpublished CERC Coastal Engineering Technical 

 Note, TN-VI-1, Sept. 1979). 



PROBLEM: Develop equipment and method for longitudinally cutting the core- 

 barrel liner containing the coastal sediment core. 



BACKGROUND ; Most coring devices use plastic or thin-wall metal tubing as 

 core-barrel liners. Coastal sediments collected during the drilling opera- 

 tions are contained within this liner which is removed, capped, identified, 

 and stored. In order to make a detailed visual log of the core and to 

 selectively sample the sediments it is necessary to split the core length- 

 wise into halves. An assembly for splitting core liners that has proven 

 very satisfactory at the Coastal Engineering Research Center is described 

 below. 



DESCRIPTION OF EQUIPMENT ; The core liner cutting assembly consists of two 

 main components: (1) a metal table and trough assembly (Fig. A-1) for 

 holding the core and (2) a high-speed router fitted with a guide arm. The 

 lightweight table Is constructed of aluminum plate with aluminum channels 

 for bracing. The trough is made by mounting two steel angles on the table. 

 One angle is fixed; the other is bolted to the table through slotted holes 

 to permit width adjustment to various core liner diameters. The entire assem- 

 bly can be set on sawhorses when used. The length of the table is determined 

 by the length of the core liners to be split. As an example, the pneumatic 

 vibratory coring device (Williams, Prins, and Meisburger, 1979)^ used at 

 Galveston, Texas, produced a 4-inch-diameter (10.1 centimeters) sediment core 

 with a maximum length of 20 feet (6.1 meters). 



Sediment core liner to be cut 



Adjusting bolt 



t>J|^0>.X..ft ^v.^w . / " , " ^ lit 



Ax6-in (10.2x15.2 cm) Angles 

 wood spacers 



Lightweight Aluminum Table / 



1/4-in (6.4 mm) Aluminum Plate^ 



A-in (10.1 cm) Channel ^ ...X^ 



Figure A-1. End view of the core-splitting device. 



^WILLIAMS, S.J., PRINS, D.A., and MEISBURGER, E.P,, "Sediment Distribution 

 Sand Resources, and Geologic Character of the Inner Continental Shelf Off 

 Galveston County, Texas," MR 79-4, U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Coastal 

 Engineering Research Center, Fort Belvoir, Va., July 1979. 



