Diagrammatic representation of the high-pressure bottles (HPB) in configuration of samples filling (Tamburini et al. 2003). The filling valve is set off by the scientist on board the ship. When the filling valve is opened, the natural hydrostatic pressure pushes down the floating piston and the seawater enters into the upper chamber of 2 HPBs. The distilled water is flushed out from the lower chamber of the syringes to the exhaust tanks, through a nozzle that acts as an hydraulic brake (Bianchi et al., 1999b). During retrieval, hydrostatic pressure is maintained thanks to a check valve that avoided any decompression within the "high pressure" HPB, in contrast to the "decompressed" HPB that were devoid of check valve.

 

Functionning of a HPB:

- Filling of HPB --> click here (Powerpoint animation) directly if you used Explorer else "save as" if you used Netscape.

- Sub-sampling of HPB --> click here (Powerpoint animation) directly if you used Explorer else "save as" if you used Netscape.