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Floating Wind and the Taming of Subsea Spaghetti
Preparing for industrialization, the floating offshore wind industry is tackling its unique mooring and cabling challenges.The idea of keeping floating offshore wind platforms in place using dynamic positioning has been considered. The trouble is: it could take up to 80% of the electricity generated by the turbine to do it.So, as Maersk Supply Service said a few years back: In a field of 100 turbines with 4-5 mooring lines each…
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Subsea Digitalization: Remote Control
The more production infrastructure we push to the seabed, the more data we need to pull back up. With it comes opportunity.Chevron’s landmark 6,500 tons of subsea gas compression infrastructure for Jansz-Io demonstrates the scale of what is being put on the seabed, but there’s a diversity of other infrastructure under development that will operate alongside traditional production systems.This includes subsea fluid storage technology from NOV Subsea Production Systems…
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New Project Marks Tipping Point for Subsea Electrification
OneSubsea™, an SLB joint venture, recently announced a contract award for its all-electric subsea production system, and John Macleod, vice president of technology and strategy at SLB OneSubsea, sees it as the onset of a tipping point.“Large investments have been made across the industry to make this capability a reality, and we now see several projects on the horizon that use all-electric as their…
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Less is More with Gyroscopes
A new generation of fiber optic gyroscopes is taking the accuracy of inertial navigation systems higher and the payload lower.A fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) can now weigh less than three kilograms, less than two kilograms even, and be less than 200mm in diameter.As their host AUVs themselves shrink, FOGs are following suit, and as the AUVs go deeper and perform a wider range of data collection tasks…
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Autonomous Survey Technology: Cutting the Umbilical
There is a flurry of development underway to cut seafloor seismic and geotechnical survey technologies free from on-site control.The deeper you go, the quieter the ocean becomes. It’s something that Kyrre Tjøm is exploiting in his back-to-basics approach to ocean bottom nodes (OBNs). Like his competitors, the CEO and Founder of iDROP, is developing autonomous OBNs that can deploy themselves on to the seabed without ROV support.The current method for laying the nodes…
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The Problem with Reducing Underwater Radiated Noise
If the global commercial fleet reduced its speed by 10%, it would reduce underwater radiated noise by 40%, but nothing’s ever that simple.The main thing holding the shipping industry back from reducing its underwater radiated noise (URN) is not a lack of appropriate technology. It’s argued that many of the technologies being implemented today to reduce fuel consumption also reduce noise. So, the noise reductions could essentially come at no net cost to the shipowner…
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New Wave Data Underpins Ship Structural Integrity
The loss of the Stellar Daisy in 2017 was a tragic reminder of the importance of wave data to ship design and operation. The vessel sank in the South Atlantic Ocean, with 22 of 24 crewmembers lost. The structural failure of the vessel was attributed to several factors including material fatigue and the forces imposed on the hull as a result of the weather conditions.Survey requirements for some vessel types have since been tightened…
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MTR100: Subsea Batteries
Subsea batteries are being configured to meet the demands of science and industry. In both cases, the aim remains to boost the endurance of underwater systems.Not that long ago, SubCtech claimed to be building the world’s largest and only Li-ion battery for subsea oil and gas applications - a 1MWh, 22-ton battery storage skid. The stakes are increasing in this upsizing market, with Kraken Robotics recently announcing an order for subsea batteries worth $16 million…