Hydraulic and earth engineering – Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying – retrieving,... – Submerging – raising – or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
Patent
1992-01-29
1994-09-20
Corbin, David H.
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying, retrieving,...
Submerging, raising, or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
4051683, 4051684, F16L 118
Patent
active
053484231
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention mainly relates to a device and/or a ship equipped with this device to perform the laying of flexible conduits, in particular flexible tubular conduits comprising tensioning means placed on the vertical path of said flexible tubular conduits.
It is known to perform, from a ship, the laying of flexible tubular conduits. Such a conduit can be stored in a came with vertical axis, or in a drum with horizontal axis. The conduit is unrolled approximately horizontally from storage means.
The conduit is held by tensioning means assuring its suspension. The tensioning means support the mechanical tension coming from the weight of the unrolled conduit and thus prevent the storage means from sustaining this weight. After the tensioning means, the flexible tubular conduit passes over a deflecting element such as a wheel or a bent chute, placed, for example, at the back of the ship and assuring the guiding of the flexible conduit and the clearing of the edge of the ship, the axis of the conduit going from an approximately horizontal direction to a greatly inclined direction, the angle of inclination able to be of several degrees to about 15 to 20 degrees relative to the vertical. The conduit is immersed in the water to be deposited on the ocean floor. The tensioning means as well as the wheel assuring the transition from the horizontal path to the vertical path therefore must support the weight of the flexible tubular conduit between the ship and the floor as the laying ship advances. Tensioning means as well as the deflecting element must therefore be able to support the traction exerted by the part of the flexible conduit suspended between the ship and the floor. To be able to lay flexible conduits of relatively large diameter in great depths of water, tensioning means and deflecting elements are used whose dimensions and cost pose a problem, and which raises the fear of an excessive space requirement on the bridge of the laying ship.
To perform the laying, it is also known to use a piece of equipment such as a winch that combines storage functions and elements for tensioning the flexible conduit, which also necessitates making the flexible conduit go over a deflecting element to put it in the water. This winch, as well as the deflecting element become excessive in size and bulk when the diameter of the conduit and the water depth increase. As the diameter of the flexible tubular conduit and the depth increase, the size of the wheel becomes increasingly large. Such a wheel can have a diameter on the order of 10 meters for a depth approximately equal to 500 meters.
With the devices of known type, it is not possible to exceed this magnitude of depth. Wheels of larger diameter cannot easily be produced.
Moreover, there are problems of passage of the end fittings for connection of flexible tubular conduit sections to auxiliary accessories mounted on the flexible conduit, such as collars, stiffeners, buoys, anodes, etc., because these accessories, which are relatively rigid and whose outer crosswise dimension is greater than the outer diameter of the flexible conduits must pass over the deflecting element.
These problems can be solved, in a known manner, by using tilting gantries as described in French patent 85 05440 (published under no. 2 580267). But, just as in the case of known equipment for laying, such as tensioning means, winches and deflecting elements, it has been found, despite the advantages of such a device, that it becomes excessively bulky when the diameter of the flexible conduits and the water depth increase.
With the devices of known type, it is not possible to exceed a water depth on the order of 500 meters when the inner diameter of the flexible tubular conduit to be laid reaches about 30 cm.
This invention has as its object the laying of flexible conduits at depths approximately greater than those which are possible by using the known means, such as, for example, a depth on the order of 1000 to 2000 meters. The device according to this invention having to be able to support considerable t
REFERENCES:
patent: 4068490 (1978-01-01), Jegousse
patent: 4073156 (1978-02-01), Smith
patent: 4486123 (1984-12-01), Koch et al.
International Search Report, PCT/FR91/00264, Aug. 1991, European Patent Office.
Coutarel Alain
Espinasse Philippe F.
Maloberti Rene
Coflexip
Corbin David H.
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