Vũ Hoàng

Mr. Vũ Hoàng
  • Date of birth: 24/4/1975;
  • Education: Hanoi University of Technology (Đại học Bách Khoa Hà Nội), aviation engineering;
  • Current position: Inspector at Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam;
  • Mr. Vũ Hoàng happens to be Dương’s husband and thus an unofficial EOS affiliate;
  • Hoàng joined EOS coring team in our second expedition in Biển Hồ maar lake in December 2016 with his home-made equipment called “push corer with an extended set of metal rods“. Our field work yielded two 50- to 70-cm long sediment cores using his design. In the occasion, witnessing the EOS group’s  need of more efficient coring equipment from Biển Hồ lake Hoàng agree to improve coring equipment for our group for next expedition.
Hoàng rows to coring site with EOS team in the second coring expedition in Biển Hồ maar lake, December 2016.
Our field work yielded two 50- to 70-cm long sediment cores using Hoàng’s designed and inexpensive “push corer with an extended set of metal rods” in Biển Hồ maar lake, December 2016.

September 2017, after discussing with Hướng the operating principles of LacCore’s Livingstone and Bolivia-type piston corers, Hoàng accepted the challenge to design and build a customized piston corer for use in 20 m water depth. By October 2017, Hoàng had produced a working piston corer assembly.

Hoàng shows his customized piston corer to EOS group at a test site, Hà Nội suburb, November 2017. 
EOS members test Hoàng’s newly-designed piston corer in a shallow pond, Hà Nội suburb, November 2017. 

Hoàng’s design uses a steel pin to lock the piston to the bottom of the core liner before lowering the device into water. Several segments of metal rods with quick-release threads are used to manually lower the piston corer to a pre-determined depth just above or within the sediment. A sharp pull on a steel cable releases the pin, followed by tying of the steel cable to the platform. Further pushing of the rods lowers the core liner while the piston is kept at a stationary depth. The piston corer successfully recovered sediment segments from up to 21 m water depth with up to 3.5 depth in sediment, all at a fraction of the cost of commercially available piston coring equipment. Hoàng‘s newly designed coring device performed better than expected.

Our team prepares Hoàng-built piston corer for deployment in Biển Hồ lake..
The piston is locked to the bottom of the core liner with a steel pin before the assembly is lowered through the water column and into the sediment to the desired depth. Sharp pulling of a cable releases the piston, followed by attachment of the cable to the coring platform and pushing the core liner down for sediment coring. We successfully cored 3.5 meter into the sediment.
Two days of sediment coring in Biển Hồ in November 2017 yielded 17 wonderful piston and gravity cores from up to 21 m water depth with up to 3.5 meter penetration into sediment. Hoàng’s newly designed coring device performed better than expected.

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