Objective
The general aim of this project is to demonstrate, within a two-year time frame and through the realisation of a working prototype, an automatic control system that reduces pendulation of suspended loads in offshore lifting operations. More specifically the goals of Active Pendulation Control System (APCS) projects are :
* to demonstrate the technology involved in controlling pendulation with a scaled up plant tested and evaluated under real operating conditions.
* to assess and evaluate the capability of the system in improving the effectiveness and overall safety of offshore lifting operations.
The goal of this project is to demonstrate, within a two-year frame, an automatic system for pendulation control of the suspended load in offshore lifting operations. Launch and recovery of an object from a vessel at sea has always been a hazardous operation and realisation of this project will provide a technological solution to the problem. It is our objective that, after the two year period and following a successful demonstration, the technologies involved and the complete prototype package will be available for commercialisation. Application of the APCS in handling equipment used by the offshore support and construction vessels will provide a cost effective and safer rough weather load handling capability that will be of considerable benefit to operations associated with deeper waters and the development of marginal fields.
The vast majority of crane systems used offshore have no means to compensate for the motions induced on the suspended load caused by the sea, wind and other external disturbances. These induced motions take the form of heave (linear displacement) and pendulation (angular displacement) of the load. Previous efforts on the compensation of disturbances induced on the suspended load have resulted in the design and implementation of passive systems. The major disadvantage of passive systems is that changes in the load or the frequency of the disturbance will de-tune the system. These systems are therefore only used for specific launch/recovery operations where load parameters are essentially fixed. As yet, there are no active pendulation control systems which can be used for general crane based operation in an offshore environment.
The proposed APCS will address the limitations of passive pendulation control systems by utilising active control. It is envisaged that the technological knowledge acquired during the project will be applied to improve the philosophies of handling systems for a variety of applications. The end user of the newtechnology could therefore benefit from substantial savings as indicated by the following example. Based on a ten day per year weather dependent lost time in offshore operations, cost savings could amount to GBP 350K - 1000K per vessel, based on a charter rate of GBP 35K - 100K per day.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
DEM - Demonstration contractsCoordinator
G1 1XQ GLASGOW
United Kingdom