The challenge of taking a standard DCW submersible transducer and subjecting it to immersion 300 meters under the North Sea to capture test data proved no problem for RDP Electronics.
The DCW is an LVDT transducer designed for measuring displacements between ±2.5 mm and ±470mm and is suitable for use in a wide range of wet and submersible conditions such as experienced in the pulp and paper industry, for valve and sluice applications and structural monitoring. However, it is not usually offered for long-term exposure to seawater at depth, where the SSA or SSD seawater submersible devices would normally be specified. In this case, as the test duration was only two weeks, RDP engineers advised that the DCW would suffice but could be expected to degrade during the planned total 12 months submersion period. When recovered and sent back to RDP, the DCW transducers were discovered to be fully functional and near perfect, a testament to both the choice of materials and RDP’s manufacturing techniques that also allows factory disassembly for cleaning and maintenance.
Although not fully welded like the submersible DCW, the same care in manufacture and many of the same materials go into RDP’s standard range of industrial transducers.