Mulu Cave Project & Wind Movement

Richard Paul Russell Ltd are working with the Mulu Cave Project to ascertain the best methods of monitoring air flow within this fascinating expanse of caves.

The Mulu cave network is based in Borneo, deep in Sarawak’s Gunung Mulu National Park. Recognised as the the most spectacular caves on earth. Over millennia the flow of water draining from the slopes of G.Mulu towards the sea has cut deep gorges through the Park’s limestone mountains and, within the rock itself, a complex network of vast caves has been formed.

The Mulu cave project has been running for many years. The Project aims to explore, survey, document and carry out scientific studies of Mulu’s caves.

As part of the project there is a requirement to understand air flow movement and Richard Paul Russell Ltd have been approached to assist in supplying equipment for this purpose.

The products focussed on are the WindSonic wind sensor , due to it incredibly low start up speed and high accuracy especially at low air flow speeds. The sensor could be mounted on a tripod and linked to a SpaceLogger.W10 data logger to record all wind speed and direction data at a rate of 1Hz. This will enable the project team to continuously log data for long periods of time without any human presence.

For localised temporary recording the team are looking at the Kestrel 4500 wind speed and direction meter that can log data automatically (as well as manually) at programmable intervals, in order to display a history of weather information. Graphs display up to 2900 data points and the value, time and date of capture point can be shown.

The combination of these two systems give the ability for long term data collection and localised specific data capture.

This is a fascinating project and we hope to work with the team going forward and wish them the best of luck.

You can read more on the project here