Offshore staff
Falmouth, UK — Feritech Global has completed development of a new auto-drop piston corer for Oceaneering.
The system is designed to shorten subsea geotechnical survey durations.
A piston corer is a long, heavy tube inserted into the seabed to extract samples of soft sediment. Analysis of the samples provides information for developers planning future installations of offshore wind turbines, oil and gas pipelines, or undersea cables.
Rob Ferris, managing director of Feritech Global, said, “We estimate that this new product will enable seabed samples to be collected up to 10 times faster than with traditional piston corers.”
Oceaneering’s project team was involved in the development.
The system’s software can be used to program the auto-drop piston corer, so it can be lowered to a pre-set sea depth and then automatically released. This is said to be faster and to provide greater precision than traditional piston corers launched manually by a trigger mechanism.
Another claimed benefit is improved operator safety.
The launch and recovery system (LARS) and the winch can be operated remotely via a control panel integrated into a lightweight pack that operators can carry on the front of their bodies. This means that one person should suffice to oversee piston corer operations compared to at least two previously.
Another feature of the LARS is a strengthened barrier rail that can withstand pressures of up to 2 tons.
03.13.2024
