Patent Application
20240337085
This application claims priorities from the Chinese patent application 2023103876134 filed Apr. 7, 2023, the content of which is incorporated herein in the entirety by reference.
The present disclosure relates to the technical field of ocean engineering, in particular to an annular anchor recycling instrument and an annular anchor recycling method.
With the gradual development of offshore wind farms and offshore oil exploitation fields toward deep sea, floating anchoring foundations in various forms have been widely applied and spread, mainly including a drag flatten anchor, a suction anchor and a dynamic anchor. Among them, the suction anchor is widely used due to its convenient construction, high cost performance, recyclability and other advantages.
The suction anchor typically has a cylindrical body closed at the upper end and opened at the lower end, due to its own structural properties, the suction anchor can only reach the seabed surface during the descent, but the closed structure at the upper end makes it difficult to move further downwards. In view of anti-erosion and big torque caused by non-coplanar loads, a late-model anchor body structure has been designed, that is, an annular anchor body opened at its upper and lower ends, which is installed to a certain depth below the seabed to take advantage of the high load-bearing strength of deeper soil. However, the annular anchors installed below the seabed are more difficult to be recycled after ending its functioning; if a hoist provides a big pulling force for lifting, it functions with an excessively big pulling force with slow speed and low efficiency.
Therefore, the technical problem to be solved by the present disclosure, providing an annular anchor recycling instrument and an annular anchor recycling method, is to overcome the defect of the prior art that: if a hoist provides a pulling force for lifting the annular anchors installed below the seabed, it functions with an excessively big pulling force with slow speed and low efficiency.
In order to solve the above technical problem, the present disclosure provides an annular anchor recycling instrument configured to cooperatively install an annular anchor opened at its upper and lower ends, comprising an recycling tube, one end of which is provided with a cover body, and the other end of which is configured to be an open end for cooperating with the top of the annular anchor; a pump body assembly arranged on the cover body, and used to boost pressure to the interior of the recycling tube; a lifting portion arranged on the cover body, and used to connect with a hoist; and an installation portion in multiple groups, which are arranged on the cover body, and used to connect with the anchor chain on the annular anchor, so that the annular anchor is coaxially fixed to the open end of the recycling tube.
Optionally, it further includes a constraint means, positioned at the open end of the recycling tube, which is used to limit the relative movement between the annular anchor and the recycling tube in the radial direction.
Optionally, the constraint means includes a constraint plate, one end of which is connected with the inner wall of the open end of the recycling tube, and the other end of which is suitable for protruding into the interior of the annular anchor, so as to abut on the inner wall of the annular anchor.
Optionally, the constraint plates are configured to be in multiple groups, which are spaced along the circumferential direction of the recycling tube.
Optionally, the bottom end of the constraint plate is provided with a guiding portion bent toward its center.
Optionally, the end face of the open end of the recycling tube and the end face of the annular anchor are butted to each other.
Optionally, the lifting portions in multiple groups are arranged symmetrically with respect to the circumferential direction of the cover body.
Optionally, the installation portion has multiple groups of installation points, which are arranged sequentially along the binding direction of the anchor chain.
Optionally, the side wall of the recycling tube is provided with tube connecting portions, which are arranged in multiple groups in correspondence to the installation portion.
Optionally, the present disclosure provides an annular anchor recycling method using the annular anchor recycling instrument as any one of described above, comprising the steps of: connecting a hoist with the lifting point on the cover body, then hoisting the recycling tube into water to sink it; during the descent, actuating the pump body assembly to drain water in the recycling tube to form a pressure difference between the inside and outside the recycling tube, sinking the recycling tube above the annular anchor to be recycled under the action of the pressure difference, then butting the open end of the recycling tube to the top of the annular anchor; connecting the installation point on the cover body with the anchor chain on the annular anchor by means of an underwater robot to fix the annular anchor coaxially to the open end of the recycling tube; and starting the pump body assembly to fill water into the recycling tube for a pressure boost, meanwhile cooperating with a hoist to pull the recycling tube and the annular anchor out of the seabed.
The technical solution of the present disclosure has the following advantages:
To describe the embodiments of the present disclosure or the technical solutions in the prior art more clearly, the following briefly introduces the accompanying drawings required for describing the embodiments or the descriptions in the prior art. Apparently, the accompanying drawings in the following description show merely some embodiments of the present disclosure, and a person of ordinary skill in the art may still derive other drawings from these accompanying drawings without creative efforts.
Where, 1—annular anchor; 2—recycling tube; 3—cover body; 4—pump body assembly; 5—lifting portion; 6—installation portion; 7—anchor chain; 8—constraint means; 9—constraint plate; 10—guiding portion; 11—tube connecting portion.
The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be clearly and completely described as follows in combination with the drawings in the examples of the present disclosure, but obviously, the described examples are only a part of the embodiments of the present disclosure, rather than all the embodiments. Based on the examples of the present disclosure, all other examples obtained by a person skilled in the art without creative efforts shall fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.
Furthermore, the technical features involved in different embodiments of the present disclosure described as follows can be combined with each other as long as they do not conflict with each other.
The annular anchor recycling instrument provided by the present disclosure is configured to cooperatively recycle the annular anchor opened at its upper and lower ends.
As shown in
The annular anchor 1 is butted to the open end of the recycling tube 2. The annular anchor 1 is fixed coaxially to the open end of the recycling tube 2 by means of the connection between the anchor chain 7 and the installation portion 6; the pump body assemble 4 under control achieves filling water to boost pressure in the recycling tube 2, and drives the annular anchor 1 to rise, so as to achieve the recycling, which is executed fast and less noisily, less impacts on the environment, and there is no need to penetrate the cover body 3 to the level of the seabed. The height of the recycling tube 2 can appropriately increase, avoiding the recycling tube 2 from being jammed with soil in the process of negative pressure penetration, and the soil from being sucked into the pump body assembly 4 to damage the equipment resultantly.
Specifically, the open end of the recycling tube 2 is adapted to the shape of the top of the annular anchor 1 to be recycled, and after the recycling tube 2 and the annular anchor 1 are fixed with each other, the annular anchor 1 regarded as a part of the recycling tube 2 can be recycled together with the recycling tube 2. The lifting portion 5 and the installation portion 6 can be configured to be a lifting lug structure for respective connection with the hoist and the anchor chain.
As shown in
As shown in
This example provides multiple sets of constraint plates 9, which are spaced along the circumferential direction of the recycling tube 2, guaranteeing the constraint on the annular anchor 1 in all directions. In addition, as an alternative embodiment, the constraint plate 9 can also be configured to be a group of cylindrical structures.
As shown in
The end face of the open end of the recycling tube 2 and the end face of the annular anchor 1 provided by this example are butted and abutted to each other, avoiding the movement of the annular anchor 1 in its axial direction during installation from affecting recycling efficiency.
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
Connecting a hoist with the lifting point 5 on the cover body 3, then hoisting the recycling tube 2 into the water to sink it, as shown in
During the descent, actuating the pump body assembly 4 to drain the water in the recycling tube 2 to form a pressure difference between the inside and outside the recycling tube 2, sinking the recycling tube 2 above the annular anchor to be recycled under the action of the pressure difference, then butting the open end of the recycling tube 2 to the top of the annular anchor, wherein, the recycling tube 2 penetrates above the annular anchor at a speed of not more than 5 m/h.
Connecting the installation point 6 on the cover body 3 with the anchor chain 7 on the annular anchor by means of an underwater robot to fix the annular anchor coaxially to the open end of the recycling tube, as shown in
Starting the pump body assembly 4 to fill water into the recycling tube 2 for a pressure boost, meanwhile cooperating with a hoist to pull the recycling tube 2 and the annular anchor out of the seabed, as shown in
The annular anchor recycling instrument is used to sink the recycling tube 2 above the annular anchor 1 by means of a hoist, and fix the annular anchor 1 to the open end of the recycling tube 2 by means of the anchor chain 7; then the pump body assembly 4 starts to fill water and boost pressure, while the hoist lifts the recycling tube 2 and the annular anchor 1 cooperatively and pull them out of the seabed together, so as to recycle them fast and less noisily, and possibly reuse the recycling instrument, reducing costs.
It is obvious that the above description only gives examples for clarity, which does not impose a limitation on their embodiments. A person skilled in the art can make various changes or modifications on the basis of the above description. There is no need and inability to give all exhaustive embodiments. However, the apparent changes or modifications derived therefrom still fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023103876134 | Apr 2023 | CN | national |
