Hydraulic and earth engineering – Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying – retrieving,... – Submerging – raising – or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
Patent
1993-04-19
1995-09-12
Corbin, David H.
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying, retrieving,...
Submerging, raising, or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
4051681, F16L 114
Patent
active
054492521
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention mainly relates to a device for laying tubular conduits, in particular flexible tubular conduits or cables, comprising a submerged mobile pincer and to the method using such a device.
It is known to use devices for laying tubular conduits onto ocean beds, these laying devices comprising two pincers mounted on a frame, one being fixed, and the other being mobile relative to the frame. Such devices have a considerable bulk and a small lay length, that is to say they enable a small length of tubular conduits to be laid in each operating cycle comprising the steps of successively releasing both pincers.
There is known, from the French Patent 78 19879 (published under the No. 2,430,385), a handling device for lowering and raising cables or tubular conduits in installations for oil drilling. This device comprises a fixed pincer and a mobile pincer which are mounted on a frame. However, the mobility of the pincer is obtained by the control of jacks comprising a very short travel.
The device according to the present invention does not have the disadvantages of the devices of the known type. In fact, the use of a submerged mobile pincer makes it possible to obtain a long travel under water. The mobile pincer does not therefore take up any space on the floating support for laying tubular conduits. A device of small bulk is therefore obtained which nevertheless exhibits a considerable travel, for example of between 30 and 100 m, typically 50 m. It is to be noted that both advantages of the device according to the present invention, namely the small bulk and the considerable advancing lay length, were considered as totally contradictory and unattainable simultaneously.
The fact of having available a device which is compact, and of high performance nevertheless, enables it to be added as a complementary laying device, for example on a barge intended for the laying of rigid tubular conduits. This device makes it possible to lay a pipework comprising a rigid tubular conduit and a flexible tubular conduit which are joined together. It is thus possible to benefit from the good points characteristic of each type of tubular conduit or to benefit from the advantages of their laying method. For example, the rigid tubular conduit, the manufacturing cost of which is low, is laid on the portion of the route where the laying of a rigid pipeline does not present any problem. A flexible tubular conduit is joined for example for the connection to a production or drilling platform. Benefits additional to the good points characteristic of the flexible tubular conduit are, the high performance of the advanced laying ships used during the laying and comprising for example devices for dynamic positioning. Only such ships may work without danger in congested areas.
The laying method according to the present invention will use the barge, normally intended for the laying of rigid tubular conduits, in order to lay a length of flexible tubular conduits which is sufficient to reach the surface.
The end of the flexible tubular conduit opposite the rigid tubular conduit is either abandoned on the bottom with a view to its subsequent recovery, or transhipped on board an improved ship for laying flexible tubular conduits in order to continue the laying operations.
The use of a special laying ship to lay flexible tubular conduits makes it possible furthermore to benefit from an extremely quick laying relative to the laying of tubular conduits using barges.
It is to be noted that the device for laying rigid tubular conduits present on the barge is not normally suitable for laying flexible tubular conduits. In fact, the device responsible for clamping when rigid tubular conduits are being lowered would not make it possible to immobilize or to brake the flexible tubular conduits when they were being lowered. In the device according to the present invention use is made for example of clamping pincers or of clips having grips the opening and closing of which are controlled by jacks.
Advantageously, a submerged pincer is made to move by using
Coutarel Alain
Espinasse Philippe
Maloberti Rene
Coflexip
Corbin David H.
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