Interconnection
Another league of environment protection
Subsea exploration is now relatively routine in the oil and gas sector, but this doesn’t make it an inexpensive activity. With costs of up to a million dollars a day for vessels, ROVs and personnel, it is essential that mission critical equipment is readily available and does not suffer connectivity issues. Christian Taylor, sustaining engineering team leader at Bulgin, discusses the challenges associated with
developing new solutions for this market
R
emotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) are integral to the oil and gas industry’s subsea operations, with around 500 ROVs in active field use at any one time, and another 2,000 on standby globally. They are used to perform a range of exploratory and maintenance activities on the seabed, operating at depths well beyond the capabilities of manned submersibles. As the name suggests, ROVs are not autonomous, and are linked to the host ship via a
neutrally-buoyant tether to allow direct operator input at depths of up to 7,000 metres. ROV downtime to resolve communication issues is a major problem for the industry, with ROV hire alone costing up to $100,000 a day, plus the significantly higher costs of chartering and crewing the host vessel. Maintaining an effective link between the operator and ROV is therefore essential, requiring robust connectivity solutions to avoid unplanned and unnecessary downtime. Due to the harsh conditions that ROVs
are often required to operate in – rough seas, thick sediment and very deep water – the design of connections between the ROV and its umbilical tether have traditionally depended on ‘heavy engineering’ solutions to ensure reliability. However, the drawback of this approach is that connectors designed to continuously withstand extreme pressures and corrosive environments for many years are often very difficult to access or terminate and de-terminate, and ROV tethers can routinely take up to 24 hours to terminate for deployment. Recognising the inefficiency and potential for costly delays that this represents, the industry has recently started investigating alternative connectivity strategies, looking to other industrial automation markets for possible solutions with the aim of enabling ROV tethers to be terminated and de-terminated in less than one hour. The Bulgin name is synonymous with dust and waterproof connectivity solutions for a wide range of applications, and the company has extensive experience in developing innovative connectivity solutions for
use across multiple
engineering disciplines. Despite this extensive know-how, subsea applications present a truly unique set of challenges. Unlike the company’s off-the-shelf range of mass produced connectors, this high value/low volume market requires completely bespoke solutions. Drawing on its expertise in
environmental sealing and connector design, the Bulgin team has developed the ROV Tether Connector to provide a quick yet secure mating solution. Its circular design, 316 stainless steel casing and threaded collar locking mechanism offer uninterrupted power, data and fibre optic connectivity. To withstand the high pressures associated with working at depths of 3,000 to 7,000 metres, the Tether Connector is a compensated unit, using free flow of dielectric oil from the ROV itself to provide dynamic pressure balancing. One of the biggest challenges in this type of multi-feed connector is avoiding ‘cross-talk’ between the high voltage power lines (up to 5 kV) and low voltage data lines. Ideally, the screening path should be uninterrupted from the umbilical tether through the connector interface and into the ROV, however this is not practical when the bulk of the individual connectors for each feed are taken into account. Instead, a combination of carefully designed connector geometry and screening materials is required to isolate the various power, data and optical feeds. As power and data demands are likely to vary with each generation of ROVs, the Bulgin team chose a modular internal construction to futureproof the Tether Connector and simplify reconfiguration for new applications.
14 December 2016/January 2017 Components in Electronics
The ROV Tether Connector brings together Bulgin’s connectivity expertise and bespoke engineering capabilities to offer a truly unique solution for the subsea market. Not only does this innovative solution provide complete environmental sealing and reliable operation to depths of 7,000 metres, it also allows rapid and reliable tether coupling – in just 30 minutes!
www.bulgin.com
www.cieonline.co.uk
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