Red Marine Performs Subsea Pipeline Friction Tests

Engineering company Red Marine completes latest project at its new test facility. 

Commissioned by a global offshore contractor, Red Marine has delivered a fast track test program to investigate the friction properties of pipelay component interaction for subsea pipeline installation.

Red Marine’s scope included the rapid development and supply of a bespoke test rig to simulate offshore handling and to allow the evaluation of a large number of small scale pipe samples finished with range of surface textures and coatings. 

Speaking about the project, Joe Orrell, Managing Director at Red Marine said, “This was one of the first test projects to be completed at our new facility and showcased our full testing with intelligence service – from the development of the test procedure, the design and manufacture of the test rig, to working with the client to fully understand and extract maximum value from the results.”

Test data was recorded in real time using LabVIEW software and processed on site by the client who was based at the Red Marine test facility for the duration of the 10-day test program.