22 EXPLORATION/DRILLING/FIELD SERVICES
Rubber ‘barges’ key to helping contain oil spillage accidents
Dracone barges may not be the first items of equipment to capture world headlines during an oil spill, but they are instrumental in mopping up the mess.
Las gabarras Dracone no serán los equipos que más acaparen la atención de los titulares de la prensa mundial cuando se producen los vertidos de crudo, pero juegan sin duda un papel decisivo en la recogida de la suciedad.
Dracone Kähne sind vielleicht nicht die allerersten Geräte, die bei einem Ölunfall auf hoher See internationale Schlagzeilen machen, dennoch spielen sie eine entscheidende Rolle, wenn es um das Aufnehmen der Verschmutzungen geht.
T
he Dracone barge may not be a household name, but for coast guards around the world, this gigantic rubber bladder is part of
the first response kit in an oil spill. The Dracone barge is a misnomer since it looks nothing like the barges populating canals such as those in Amsterdam. In fact, a Dracone barge looks more like a beached whale on land, and at sea, like a giant sea monster. “It was called a barge for legislative and classification reasons,” says Mike Saunders, Business Development Manager, Trelleborg Dunlop GRG which manufactures Dracone barges on demand for coast guard authorities. Dunlop GRG (General Rubber Goods), was once part of the Dunlop Group and is based in Manchester in the UK. Trelleborg acquired Dunlop GRG in 2005. A Dracone barge is basically a vessel for
transporting any kind of liquid – from jet fuel to crude oil – from point A to point B, without the need for the infrastructure of a tanker. A tugboat usually drags a Dracone barge
through the water. It floats because of large buoyancy panels on either end, but also
www.engineerlive.com
Fig. 1. The Dracone barge is despite its name a gigantic rubber bladder that is part of the first response kit in an oil spill. Illustration: Frank Brundin/Trelleborg
because many of the liquids that it transports are lighter than water.
When an oil spill occurs, the first thing to do is to contain the oil with booms. Skimmers then set to work pushing the oil, water and other debris into a funnel where it all gets pumped into a Dracone barge for disposal on land.
Sir William Hawthorne, a Cambridge University engineering professor, invented the Dracone barge in the late 1950s following the Suez oil crisis. He was better known for his work developing the jet engine, but also had an interest in energy. Perfecting the design of the nose and tail mouldings accounted for the bulk of the empirical and theoretical analysis. Ocean towing trials and extensive stress analysis determined the precise profiles needed to transmit towing forces and snatch
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