At the OSJ Conference Gala Dinner in London on 7 February, Huisman was awarded the OSJ Innovation of the Year Award for its Fiber Rope System.
Huisman launched the Fiber Rope System in November.
Fiber Rope System
The Fiber Rope System makes it possible to apply fiber rope in subsea deployment crane applications. The system includes a Hybrid Fiber Rope System which combines the advantages of fiber rope with subsea deployment, while the heave compensation is done with traditional steel wire rope systems.
Cees van Veluw, Huisman’s Product Manager Cranes said when the system was launched: 'We strongly believe in the future of cranes with fiber rope included – not just because of a CAPEX and OPEX evaluation, but also to further shift the limit of what can be deployed in subsea applications. Our extensive R&D programme, which has been active for over 10 years, has shown that the fiber rope with the best lifetime performance would require some serious active cooling of the fiber rope on the crane when performing Active Heave Compensation. However, the actual thermal behaviour of fiber ropes in AHC have proven to be unreliable to predict and hard to measure. On top of that, having the active cooling system of the fiber rope as an essential part of the crane’s safety system is not the way we see robust and reliable crane design.'
Proper spooling of the sensitive fiber rope is done by Huisman’s Traction Winch and Storage Winch setup, while Active Heave Compensation is done with a steel wire rope on a direct winch.
Full Load at All Depths
The system is available in various capacities. For traditional knuckle boom cranes, a 120 mt and 200 mt version is available, while the Hybrid Boom Crane can be delivered with larger capacities of 400 mt and 600 mt. This can provide a significant step change in subsea deployment capabilities, as the full load is available at all depths. This way deployment up to 600 mt is now possible at depths of 4000 m and beyond.
Offshore Support Journal Innovation Award
The Offshore Support Journal Innovation Award is given to an innovative product, system or service which will have a significant impact on the design, build and/or operational aspects of offshore support vessels.
Picture by Huisman.
