11/07/2019

AVMR and the Secrets of the Deep

Hardwiring the world for a bright future and a better internet.

Our work with anti-vibration is, of course, well known. Machinery inevitably requires measures to boost production and reduce wear and tear. Similarly, transport requires the surface of the road to be separated from the vehicle travelling upon it as much as possible. But did you know that our products operate in realms you may never have previously considered, but almost certainly use every day?

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line and while satellite technology has allowed us to fire information through the air and vacuum of space you really can’t beat a more direct approach. Enter the world of sub-sea engineering and deep-sea cables where continents are literally wired together in physical connections that carry 99% of the world’s internet traffic. It’s a brave new world that is at one turn hugely technical and precise, and at another, surprisingly simple where brute-force and common sense play just as big a role as tricksy tech.

Hi-tech Meets Deep Water

Precisely unwinding a long cable from a ship for thousands of miles is a testing challenge. Firstly, there’s the planning of the route – mapping terrain thousands of feet below the waves and then being able to accurately follow that path regardless of what the elements are throwing at you above. Next comes precise knowledge as to the nature of the cable – it’s weight, shape, flexibility and drag as it falls through the water. Then there’s the monitoring of ocean currents – the invisible void that the cable must cross. And finally, there’s the precise positioning of the ship so that as the cable falls through the hundreds of feet of water it will land in the right position at its journey’s end – the bottom of the sea.

And it’s not just telecoms that needs these cables. The increase in off-shore wind farms has seen a massive increase in demand for power cables to bring this energy back home. And getting power cables right is important. They can’t be layered. If they coil over themselves, you’ll get tension and wear and inefficient transmission of the energy on board. They need to be straight and perfect every time. So how do you do this?

Updating Your Profile

The latest cable tensioning tech features caterpillar tracks that run in opposite directions to each other to grip the cable, and that’s where our tech comes in. This precise grip is achieved through pre-formed rubber profiles that hold the cable carefully and consistently across their circular cross-section. The tracks then feed it overboard, unwinding the vast reels at just the right rate and tension.

AVMR have the tech and know-how to produce these high-quality, precise rubber profiles and increasingly they’re an essential component in making our future internet and power generation aspirations a reality.

If you would like the same degree of precision brought to bear on your next engineering challenge, then give AVMR a call.