Underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11804316-B2
Application number	US-202217841416-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 15, 2022
Priority date	Nov 12, 2021
Publication date	Oct 31, 2023
Grant date	Oct 31, 2023

Abstract

The invention discloses an underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction, wherein underwater umbilical cable is used to connect underwater equipment and aquatic equipment; the underwater umbilical cable comprises an outer sheath, armored steel wires, an inner sheath, a power cable, a communication optical cable, a steel pipe, three strain measuring optical fibers, three temperature measuring optical fibers, a distributed optical fiber strain interrogator, a distributed optical fiber temperature interrogator and a processor. The invention can collect the operation status data of the umbilical cable for a long time. The collected data is highly objective, can truly reflect the real-time operation status of the umbilical cables, and plays an important role in guaranteeing the long-term submarine oil and gas exploitation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction, wherein the underwater umbilical cable is used to connect underwater equipment and aquatic equipment; the underwater umbilical cable comprises an outer sheath, armored steel wires, an inner sheath, a power cable, a communication optical cable, a steel pipe, three strain measuring optical fibers, three temperature measuring optical fibers, a distributed optical fiber strain interrogator, a distributed optical fiber temperature interrogator and a processor; the power cable is used to provide the working voltage required for the normal operation of the underwater equipment; the communication optical cable is used to establish a communication link between the underwater equipment and the aquatic equipment;
the outer sheath is concentrically sleeved on the outside of the inner sheath, a first gap with an annular cross-section is formed between the two, and a plurality of armored steel wires are evenly filled in the first gap;
the power cable, the communication optical cable, the steel pipe, strain measuring optical fibers, temperature measuring optical fibers are circumferentially distributed in the inner sheath; three strain measuring optical fibers and three temperature measuring optical fibers respectively constitute three detection optical fiber arrays, and the strain measuring optical fiber and the temperature measuring optical fiber of each detection optical fiber array are closely attached in the same cavity; the power cables, communication optical cables, and steel pipes are respectively arranged in a second gap among the detection optical fiber arrays; other spaces in the second gap are filled with fillers;
the distributed optical fiber strain interrogator is respectively connected with the three strain measuring optical fibers, and is used to process and analyze the reflected light of the three strain measuring optical fibers, locate the deformation point and deformation degree of the strain measuring optical fibers, reconstruct the shape of the underwater umbilical cable, and obtain correspondence between cable length and depth;
the distributed optical fiber temperature interrogator is used to process and analyze the reflected light obtained by the three temperature measuring optical fibers, and to monitor the temperature changes of the optical fibers in real time;
the processor is used to control the working state of the underwater equipment, and to display the temperature along the underwater umbilical cable and the three-dimensional shape of the underwater umbilical cable.

2. The underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction in claim 1 , wherein the three detection optical fiber arrays are separated by 120°.

3. The underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction in claim 1 , wherein the strain measuring optical fibers are three-in-one single-mode optical fibers, three single-core optical fibers are integrated in one cavity, and the three single-core optical fibers are separated by 120° respectively.

4. The underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction in claim 1 , wherein the temperature measuring optical fibers adopt loose sleeve single-mode optical fibers.

5. The underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction in claim 1 , wherein the underwater umbilical cable comprises storage device used to store the reflected light obtained by strain measuring optical fibers and temperature measuring optical fibers.

6. An operating method of underwater umbilical cable which is capable of temperature and vibration measuring and three-dimensional shape reconstruction in claim 1 , the operating method comprises the following steps:
S1, choose the length of umbilical cable according to the depth of the water;
S2, connect the upper production control module and the lower production equipment with umbilical cable, in which the optical fiber is connected with a flange; the power cable is connected with industrial electricity;
S3, demodulate the data returned by the temperature measuring optical fibers in real time, and performs temperature compensation on the strain measuring optical fiber according to the demodulation results;
S4, obtain the bending conditions of the umbilical cable at different lengths by calculating the data of the three strain measuring optical fibers, reconstruct the shape of the umbilical cable, and obtain the correspondence between the cable length and depth;
S5, according to the correspondence between cable length and depth, map the temperature anomaly, vibration anomaly, and morphological anomaly to the corresponding depths.

Assignees

• Nanjing University Of Technology

Inventors

• Zhang Yixin
• Xiong Fei
• Zhang Xuping
• Zhang Chi
• Chen Long
• Wang Shun
• Chen Xiaohong
• Wang Feng

Classifications

• H01B11/22 Primary

  Cables including at least one electrical conductor together with optical fibres · CPC title

• G01K11/32

  using changes in transmittance, scattering or luminescence in optical fibres · CPC title

• G01L1/242 Primary

  the material being an optical fibre · CPC title

• G02B6/4427

  Pressure resistant cables, e.g. undersea cables · CPC title

• H01B7/324 Primary

  comprising temperature sensing means · CPC title