Development of an ice core drill for liquid-filled holes

Simple tests simulating drilling in a liquid-filled hole were done of an S-type Archimedean core drill, consisting of a drive-unit, a jacket, a shaft with a screw booster and a sweeper, and a barrel. The barrel length was 0.9m. The tests revealed that the clearance between the jacket and the barrel (which together made up an Archimedean pump) should be a little wider for drilling in a liquidfilled hole than in a dry hole. With the clearance of 7.4mm, the pump could transport ice chips to the storage space between the booster and the sweeper, where the booster compacted chips by squeezing a large portion of the liquid through the sweeper which was permeable to liquid. The porosity of compacted chips could be as low as 35%.