UNDERWATER INTERVENTION 2015
WORK CLASS ROV TECHNICAL TRACK REPORT Steve Barrow, WCROV Track Chairman and Sr. Engineer for FMC Technologies-Schilling Robotics | Steve.Barrow@FMCTI.com
This year the Underwater Intervention Conference was held in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 10th – 12th. ROV professionals attended the Work-Class Remotely Operated Vehicle (WCROV) technical tracks to discuss the latest innovations and technology. Although you need to attend the sessions to get all the details, some of the discussion’s highlights can be shared in this publication.
DAY 1 TOPICS ON ROV SIMULATION, INTERVENTION, DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING AND USE IN MILITARY APPLICATIONS Two pioneers of the ROV industry, Drew Michel – former President of MTS – and Didier Renard from Technip kicked off the sessions. These gentlemen have over 90 years of combined ROV and offshore experience. As an introduction to Didier’s presentation, Drew told the story of a company that initially saved $100,000 on a project by not performing an ROV task simulation. However, on the very first ROV task, an I-beam was found to be blocking a critical ROV interface. The resulting correction cost $20,000,000. Although the importance of mission simulation is clear, Didier titled his presentation “There Is More to It than Just ROV Access” to emphasize that dimensional clearance checks are not enough to ensure operational excellence. He went on to detail seven important checks that Technip always performs: ROV access, ROV stabilization, ROV manipulation, tooling interfaces, tooling visibility, markings and monitoring, and tether snag points and other traps. Johnathan Grumbles from Oceaneering shared a summary of the industry’s response to the Macondo oil spill, including API Standard 53 that requires closure of blow-out preventer (BOP) rams in 45 seconds or less. He discussed several methods of BOP intervention and described details of accumulator-based systems and ROV skids that have been used to perform BOP testing. He calculates that the worst-case scenario for an ROV to close a BOP within 45 seconds would require more than 300 horsepower. This power requirement poses a considerable challenge for ROV designers and operators.
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