A--ACOUSTIC TECHNIQUES DEVELOPMENT FOR ROVS

ACOUSTIC TECHNIQUES DEVELOPMENT FOR REMOTELY OPERATED VEHICLES (ROVs) PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY AS IT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY NOTICE THAT WILL BE ISSUED. The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) intends to competitively award a contract entitled "Acoustic Techniques Development for ROVs." This procurement is being conducted in accordance with FAR Part 15. The BSEE, Acquisition Operations Branch, is the contracting office for this procurement and the resultant contract administration. The Government intends to award a firm fixed price type contract for this effort. The period of performance of the resultant contract is anticipated to be 12 months. The estimated cost of this study is between $450,000 and $529,000. The applicable NAICS Code is 541330, Engineering Services. All potential offerors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) (www.sam.gov) in order to receive Government contracts. Dispersants are important tools in the oil spill response arsenal to decrease the spread and impact from surface oil releases and subsea blowouts. During the Deepwater Horizon incident, 1.84 million gallons of chemical dispersants were used, including 771,000 gallons injected at the wellhead. The main effect of dispersants on oil is to decrease the size of the oil droplets so that the oil will remain in the water column by natural turbulence, long enough to be consumed by naturally occurring bacteria. At the time of the Macondo blowout, the main option for monitoring the effectiveness of dispersants was to collect oil samples near the blowout and bring them back to a laboratory for analysis. A second method was to observe the size of the surface slick after the dispersant was applied at the wellhead to see if the slick decreased in size. These methods were indirect and not timely. Acoustics have been used in ocean environments for many decades for imaging and identifying various objects (fish, submarines, etc.) and for mapping the bathymetry of the seafloor. However, sonar instruments are tuned to image targets rather than provide physical parameters such as the size of oil droplets, which can be on the order of 10s to 100s of microns. Recently, under a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) contract (E12PC00048), Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) developed the techniques to quantitatively measure the gas bubble size distribution, oil droplet size for surface releases and the percent of dispersed oil for subsurface releases using acoustic frequencies (Project number 1002, http://www.bsee.gov/Technology-and-Research/Oil-Spill-Response-Research/Projects/Project1002/). ARA's acoustic measurements utilized the complete waveform and frequency response of the attenuation and backscattering. ARA performed tests in ARA's lab and at the Ohmsett facility and successfully identified specific frequency ranges for improving dispersant effectiveness monitoring. Continuing instrument development and scientific research is needed to help meet the needs of the oil spill response community for subsurface releases and dispersant applications. Optimizing the application of dispersant to subsea blowouts requires knowledge of many parameters including the size distribution of the oil droplets, the presence and size distribution of gas hydrates and bubbles, the presence and size distribution of any sediment, and the dynamics of these constituents as a function of depth, temperature, salinity, and dispersant-to-oil ratio (DOR). Studying the dynamic interactions of these constituents is needed to help guide the development of practical tools to measure dispersant effectiveness. BSEE has published a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) and anticipated further research in this area this year. Incorporating the acoustic measurements on ROVs and/or AUVs will be beneficial to oil spill response community for subsurface releases and dispersant applications. BSEE's objective is to develop and test acoustic techniques and sensors mounted in free-swimming platforms [Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and/or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)] for field applications to measure: (a) slick thickness on the surface of the water, and/or (b) oil droplet size distribution at the well head for subsurface releases of crude oil and dispersants in the presence of natural gas. HOW TO COMPETE FOR THIS CONTRACT: If you are interested in participating in this acquisition, please send your organization's name, point of contact, address, telephone and fax numbers, email address, and DUNS Number via email to Sang Han at contact@example.gov or via U.S. Mail to Sang Han, BSEE Acquisition Operations Branch, 45600 Woodland Park Dr. Sterling, VA 20166. Responses are due no later than 2:00 P.M. Eastern Time, May 8, 2015. Those organizations expressing an interest in this opportunity will receive a copy of the complete solicitation upon issuance. Reference Solicitation No. E15PS00088 and title "Acoustic Techniques Development for ROVs" on all correspondence. TELEPHONE INQUIRIES ARE STRONGLY DISCOURAGED.