Subsea Payload Installation via Adapter Spool Winch System
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Solution Overview
Problem
The installation of payloads on subsea structures, such as wellheads and blowout preventers, is hindered by extreme pressures from blowing wells, causing oscillations and deflection, making centralization and precise alignment difficult, and posing safety risks due to hazardous hydrocarbon plumes.
Innovation Solution
A process involving an adapter spool with sheaves and winches is used to lock onto the subsea structure, deploy slings, and actuate winches to draw the payload into position, allowing for offset positioning and controlled installation while maintaining personnel safety outside the plume.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If conventional vertical installation methods are used to install payloads on subsea structures, then installation speed may be maintained, but the payload cannot be properly centralized and aligned due to oscillations caused by high-pressure fluid release
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs counterbalancing forces through the positioning system to counteract the oscillations and upthrust generated by high-pressure fluid release. The system uses opposing forces to stabilize the payload during installation, allowing precise alignment despite the harmful pressure oscillations from the blowing well.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary positioning system between the payload and the subsea structure. This intermediary system absorbs and compensates for the harmful oscillations, allowing the payload to be precisely aligned and installed despite the unstable conditions created by high-pressure fluid release.
2Ease of operation
If personnel approach the subsea structure for payload installation, then direct control and monitoring are improved, but safety risks increase due to hazardous hydrocarbon plumes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces direct mechanical intervention by personnel with remotely operated positioning systems and automated control mechanisms. This allows installation control to be maintained through remote operation, eliminating the need for personnel to physically approach the hazardous hydrocarbon plume area.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces remote operating systems and automated control intermediaries between the operators and the hazardous environment. These intermediaries allow personnel to control the installation process from a safe distance outside the hydrocarbon plume while maintaining full monitoring and control capabilities.
3Device complexity
If the payload is lowered directly onto the subsea structure, then installation process is simplified, but the payload oscillates and deflects out of central position due to strong pressures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs dynamic positioning systems that can adapt and adjust in real-time to counteract the oscillations caused by high-pressure fluid release. The system uses movable and adjustable components that respond to changing conditions, maintaining payload stability despite the dynamic and unstable environmental forces.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameters of the installation system by introducing active control mechanisms that can adjust positioning forces, speeds, and stabilization parameters. These parameter changes allow the system to compensate for pressure-induced oscillations and maintain central alignment throughout the installation process.
Data Source
AI summary
A process for installing the payload onto a subsea structure has the steps of affixing an adapter spool on to the subsea structure, deploying a plurality of winches in spaced relation to the subsea structure, connecting an end of a plurality of slings received on the plurality of sheaves to a plurality of winches, connecting an opposite end of the plurality of slings to the payload, lowering the payload in a direction toward the subsea structure, actuating the plurality of winches so as to draw the payload downwardly into a position on the subsea structure, and locking the payload onto the subsea structure. The adapter spool has a collar with a plurality of sheaves extending outwardly therefrom. The payload can be a capping stack and the subsea structure can be a blowout preventer.