Single-Line Mooring With Guided Weight Inverted Cone Watch Circle
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional single-line mooring systems fail to maintain a tight watch circle in bodies of water with varying depths, leading to potential anchor line breakage or displacement, which is problematic in applications like sanitation ponds where dense vessel spacing is necessary for efficient equipment deployment and operation.
Innovation Solution
A single-line mooring system that uses an inverted cone-shaped watch circle defined by a guided weight and block and tackle arrangement, allowing for depth insensitivity across a range of water depths, ensuring a consistent and non-overlapping watch circle even with varying water levels.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single anchor line is used with conventional mooring, then the vessel can be moored in the body of water, but the watch circle becomes large and the system is sensitive to depth changes, causing anchor line breakage or displacement
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the anchor line system adjustable and adaptive to depth changes. The anchor line length is dynamically adjusted based on water depth variations, and the guided weight mechanism allows the system to adapt to different depths while maintaining a consistent watch circle size. This dynamic adjustment prevents anchor line breakage or displacement while keeping the watch circle tight.
Solution Approach 2:
The guided weight acts as an intermediary element between the anchor and the vessel. It controls the geometry of the anchor line arrangement, ensuring that the line maintains proper angles and tension regardless of depth changes. This intermediary mechanism prevents direct transmission of depth variation effects to the anchor line, thereby maintaining reliability and watch circle consistency.
2Productivity
If multiple vessels are moored with dense spacing, then equipment deployment efficiency is improved, but vessels may tangle with one another due to large watch circles
Solution Approach 1:
By dynamically adjusting the anchor line length and using the guided weight mechanism, each vessel maintains a consistent and reduced watch circle size regardless of water depth. This allows multiple vessels to be moored in dense spacing without their watch circles overlapping, preventing tangling while enabling efficient equipment deployment across multiple units.
3Reliability
If the anchor line length is fixed for shallow depth, then the anchor is set tightly, but the line breaks or the anchor is pulled out when water depth increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses dynamic adjustment of anchor line length based on water depth. The guided weight mechanism allows the line to be longer when water is deep and shorter when water is shallow, maintaining optimal tension and geometry in all conditions. This prevents both anchor line breakage in deep water and loose positioning in shallow water.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of anchor line length according to water depth conditions. By adjusting this physical parameter dynamically, the system maintains proper anchor tension and geometry across varying depths, ensuring both reliable anchor setting and adaptability to depth changes.
4Adaptability or versatility
If the anchor line length is increased for deep water, then depth variability is accommodated, but the watch circle becomes larger and control is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The guided weight serves as an intermediary that decouples the relationship between anchor line length and watch circle size. It controls the geometry of the line arrangement, ensuring that even when the line is longer to accommodate deep water, the watch circle remains tight and controlled. This intermediary mechanism allows depth adaptability without sacrificing positional control.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system maintains a consistent and tight watch circle regardless of water depth changes, preventing vessel tangling and ensuring efficient operation of surface-mounted equipment like solar cells and wind energy generation tools.
Implementation Method 1
A single line mooring system whose watch circle is defined by an inverted cone whose size is depth insensitive for a range of depths using a guided weight and block and tackle arrangement
Data Source
AI summary
The method of mooring buoyant equipment at the surface of a body of water in a controlled position using a single line by connecting a first line from the buoyant equipment to a first diameter drum on a subsea mooring tower, connecting the first diameter drum to a second diameter drum, connecting a second line from the second diameter drum to a weight, such that when the depth of the body of water changes the tension on the first line remains the same and the vertical distance travelled by the weight is less than the change in the depth of the body of water.