Pressure Test

Lowering our pressure housing into the test chamber

Closing the lid of the test chamber

Pressure Gauges

As discussed in a previous post I have been developing a custom underwater sensor at work called the TEMA (Towed Electromagnetic Array).  This project required that we design and manufacture a pressure housing for electronics.  We got the pressure housing back from the machine shop last week and took it to the oceanography department at the University of Washington to have it pressure tested.  The housing was lowered into a specially designed chamber and pressurized to 900PSI which is equivalent to about 600 meters water depth.  This is a relatively low pressure given that the full ocean depth is over 5000PSI and the water pressure in the bottom of the Marianas Tench is over 15000PSI!  The pressure housing passed the test and now we are on to final assemble and more testing of the TEMA.