Seatools Introduces Active Heave Compensation Module
Dutch subsea engineering company Seatools has introduced an intelligent active heave compensation module: HeaveMate, a system for new and existing offshore and subsea equipment such as winches, cranes and LARS systems.
HeaveMate can be delivered either as an OEM package with the essentials for heave compensation (black box controller with sensors and software) or as part of a complete turnkey system, including mechanical and hydraulic hardware. Seatools’ simulation capabilities are applied to ensure proper performance of the overall system in any sea condition and situation (including failure cases), and pre-tune the controller prior to commissioning.
Jan Frumau, Managing Director at Seatools, said, “I think the combination of HeaveMate, our extensive experience and our advanced simulation capabilities results in an appropriate and strong value proposition. We are able to deliver, in a very short timeframe, highly reliable active heave compensation for any kind of task, while requiring minimal commissioning times.”
Sieds Tamsma, Senior Research & Development engineer, said, “In addition to the risk and time reduction yielded from the application of simulations, we have incorporated auto-tuning functionalities that allow us to reduce commissioning times. Moreover, the controller adapts itself to actual wave conditions, which optimizes performance while avoiding potential resonance problems. We believe built-in intelligence of this type is a considerable operational advantage.”
The system is currently deployed in a retrofit project in which a passively compensated LARS will be upgraded toward an actively heave-compensated LARS.