Hydraulic and earth engineering – Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying – retrieving,... – Submerging – raising – or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
Patent
1996-03-22
1998-10-13
Kent, Christopher
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying, retrieving,...
Submerging, raising, or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
405 17, 405 20, 524031, 525822, 522237, F16L 124, E02B 312
Patent
active
058202994
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to building modules and building assemblies constructed from such modules such as stabilising and protection mats used to ballast and protect underwater installations, particularly, gas or oil pipelines on the sea bed or river bed.
It is known that such mats may comprise a plurality of elongate cast concrete bars disposed in side-by-side spaced relationship with each other and connected together by flexible connectors so as in use to enable the flexible mat to be draped over or against a pipeline (usually with the assistance of divers) with its ends resting on the sea or river bed at either or both sides of the pipeline. In practice, a number of these mats are draped at intervals along a length of the pipeline considered in need of ballasting and protection particularly from the undesirable effects of erosion of the sedimentary bed, scouring, and damage sometimes caused by trawler line tackle and the dragging of ships anchors or anchor cables which can result in the loss of areas of concrete coating usually applied to the exterior surfaces of a pipeline.
Known mats of the kind referred to above have been found to be very expensive since they require significant amounts of capital investment, time and labour in providing and setting up moulds or shuttering which have to be retained during at least partial curing of the concrete. Also additional time has to be allowed for complete concrete curing after the moulds are removed before the mats can be used. Thus, the cost of producing many hundreds of these known kinds of mats required to stabilize and protect e.g., many miles of natural gas offshore pipelines are thought to be unacceptably high.
Applicants UK patent specification publication No. 2178127 discloses a method of manufacturing a flexible pipeline stabilizing and protection mat, in which there is provided a plurality of elongate tubular members closed at one end thereof. Each tubular member is formed with pairs of holes longitudinally spaced apart along its length, the holes of each pair of holes being substantially co-aligned in diametrically opposed walls of the tubular member. Lengths of flexible rope are threaded through the respective aligned pairs of holes of the tubular members which are arranged in predetermined spaced parallel relationship with each other along the ropes. The first and last tubular members of said plurality of tubular members are provided with hook means. The tubular members are then filled from their open ends with concrete which completely encapsulate and anchor the portions of rope contained within the tubular members which become a permanently retained encasement part of each of the flexibly interconnected bars formed thereby.
One object of the invention is to provide a building module or unit which is constructed to facilitate its connection or securement to like modules in end-to-end relationship and/or in side-by-side relationship.
From one aspect the invention provides a building module comprising a tubular member filled with filling material and means located in position in the tubular member and associated with an end of the tubular member for facilitating connection of the module in end-to-end relationship with another like module using a connecting means to connect the two modules.
Conveniently, the connection-facilitating means may be associated with both ends of the tubular member so as to facilitate the connection of other like modules in end-to-end relationship to either or each end of the module. In this case the connection-facilitating means may be a tube that is located in the filling material and extends longitudinally of the tubular member. The tube may be a substantially plain bore tube through which connecting means such as a prestressed tendon or rod can pass to connect a plurality of like modules together. Alternatively, the tube may be internally screw-threaded so as to receive externally screw-threaded connecting means to connect the module to a like adjacent module.
The connecting means may be located or fixed in position in
REFERENCES:
patent: 4375928 (1983-03-01), Crow et al.
patent: 4564311 (1986-01-01), Scales
patent: 4664552 (1987-05-01), Schaaf
patent: 4683156 (1987-07-01), Waters
British Gas plc
Horton-Richardson Yvonne
Kent Christopher
LandOfFree
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