Flexible Submarine Cable Water Barrier via Segmented Metal Tape
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Solution Overview
Problem
Submarine power cables with metal sheaths for dynamic applications are stiff and prone to fatigue, leading to potential water ingress due to their rigidity, which compromises their flexibility and durability.
Innovation Solution
A submarine power cable design featuring a cable core enclosed by protective layers, including a first metal tape layer helically wound with small gaps and a second layer displaced 50% relative to the first, with gaps filled with a water-resistant material, providing a flexible and watertight metallic barrier.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a metal sheath is used to protect the cable core, then water protection is improved, but flexibility deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous metal sheath is segmented into discrete helical turns with gaps between them. This segmentation allows the cable to flex more easily while the overlapping structure maintains water protection. Each segment can move independently, improving flexibility while the overlapping design prevents water ingress through the gaps.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the rigid continuous metal sheath with a flexible helical wire structure. The thin wire format and helical configuration allow the barrier to bend and flex with the cable, maintaining both water protection and flexibility. The structure acts as a flexible shell that conforms to cable movements.
2Ease of operation
If gaps are left between helical turns, then flexibility is improved, but water protection deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The helical wire structure is nested with water-resistant filling material within the gaps between turns. This nested configuration allows the flexible gap structure to maintain water protection by filling the spaces with impermeable material, combining flexibility with water resistance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a composite structure combining the helical wire barrier with water-resistant filling material. This composite approach allows gaps to exist for flexibility while the filling material provides water protection, achieving both objectives simultaneously.
Data Source
AI summary
An cable that is flexible and watertight by means of a metallic water resistant barrier has at least two protective layers 20, 30 of metal tape wound to a cable core 10 with small gaps 50 between each turn of the tape, and where each layer is displaced 50% relative to each other thus covering the gaps in the layers 20, 30, and where the gaps 50 are filled with a water resistant material.