Sritama Sarkar
Sritama Sarkar
Sritama Sarkar is pursuing a PhD degree in the Ocean & Naval Architectural Engineering at Memorial. From Calcutta, India, Sritama did her Bachelor’s in Geology (with honours) followed by a Masters degree in Geology from Calcutta University, India. Thereafter, she did a second Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering (specializing in Dredging Technology) from the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands. She worked for a year in inland dredging industry, before resuming to her academic career again.
“I wanted to pursue PhD work in submersible technology for a long time in order to improve my knowledge in the field and also to contribute something to the field of submersible technology. It was this urge, which pushed me to do research work.”
“My research focuses on developing suitable technology and equipment for dredging deep inland reservoirs as also to execute dredging and mining activities in shelf or tidal areas. There is either lack of suitable technology or operational restrictions with the existing technology. Within my research, I developed, designed, built and tested the prototype of a new type of walking submersible dredging/ mining platform. This new design is very modular and can be modified easily to adapt to a particular working area very easily. This new technology can be used to replace conventional surface floating dredgers in a number of inland and offshore areas, besides the above mentioned application areas. Surface floating dredgers require a high number of personnel for operation. Small remotely operated submersible dredgers/ miners with sufficient on board autonomy will require less personnel. This is an important consideration for countries like Canada where labour is very expensive. The new vehicle is suitable for areas where constant monitoring and dredging activities are necessary. These include a) reservoirs and water supply intakes; b) small harbors and navigational canals; c) drainage and municipal canals; d) very long water supply canals and associated reservoirs; e) canals and reservoirs. It can also be used for placer diamond, gold or heavy mineral sand mining in shelf areas and in the offshore oil and gas and telecommunications industry, dredging of contaminated sediments.”
“During the last three years simultaneous designing and building of the prototype of an active legged submersible dredger/ miner has been carried out. The mechanical construction of this electro-hydraulically operated highly modular vehicle is complete, and is presently being remotely operated on land by one person. The first phase of on land functionality and locomotion tests has been successfully completed. Performance evaluation models have been developed for the designed vehicle to predict the vehicle performance under varying environmental and operational conditions. These evaluation models can be used as a design tool for developing similar types of legged walking submersible dredging/ mining platform.”
“This research is a collaborative research project between Dr. Neil Bose, Canada Research Chair in Offshore and Underwater Vehicles Design, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, Ms. Sritama Sarkar, PhD student, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Mr. Mridul Sarkar, Managing Director, EEM (P) Ltd., India. EEM (P) Ltd. is an inland dredging company from eastern India, which has designed, manufactured and operated dredgers in India for the last 26 years.”
“I met my supervisor Dr. Neil Bose, Canada Research Chair in Offshore and Underwater Vehicles Design from Memorial University in an International Conference. During our conversations I came to know about the underwater vehicle research going on in Memorial University. I expressed my interest to work in the field of submersible dredging/ mining platforms and our mutual interests matched. I also came to know that Memorial has the best program in Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering in North America. These two reasons led me to choose Memorial as the university to pursue further research activities."
“The faculty members are very helpful in Engineering and being involved with a multidisciplinary work, I received enormous help and valuable suggestions from different professors, technical staffs and fellow students at different times. The atmosphere in general is very friendly, which really facilitates if you want to pursue research work.”
“The university is situated next door to the Institute for Ocean Technology, which makes it really helpful if you are performing ocean related work.”
“The environment and atmosphere in St. John’s is very clean and pollution free and the people are really helpful. It’s a very quite place, which makes it ideal as a research environment.”
“In my free time, I like to take long walks through the nature trails in St. John’s and also enjoy music.”
In 2004, Sritama passed her comprehensive exam with a distinction.
“I want to work either in the underwater vehicle industry or join the academia pursuing research on underwater vehicles after I finish my PhD”