IV. HANDLING OF ELECTPO-MECHANICAL CABLES 



Cable handling Includes shipping, loading, deployment and retrieval. 

 Improper handling has caused many failures of cable svstems resulting in 

 loss of substantial time and -money. One of the major problems is the 

 formation of kinks. Although, in most cases, cable deployment is care- 

 fully planned and prepared, electrical and mechanical failures still 

 occur due to lack of knowledge of proper handling. Literature on cable 

 handling is not readily available; therefore, the novice engineer learns 

 proper handling techniques through mistakes. Some useful experiences 

 have been documented within the transocean telephone cable laying and 

 the offshore petroleum industries. But this valuable knowledge is pro- 

 prietary information and, consequently, is not generally available. 



Cable manufacturers can only offer limited information on handling 

 techniques. Handling information on new cables such as torque-balanced 

 armored cables is virtually nonexistent. As ocean technology moves with 

 more complicated cable svstems into deeper water, the need for reliable 

 underwater cable construction increases greatly. Proper cable handling 

 techniques must be developed and documented as soon as possible to 

 answer this requirement. This section provides a general background of 

 the handling procedures, the current understandings, and the future needs. 



Cable Handling Procedure 



Cable handling is discussed below under three topic headings: cable 

 transport, ship loading, and cable deployment and retrieval. During ship- 

 ping and loading, the tension in the cable is small, and its behavior 

 depends on the rotation and torque caused by external movements. Whereas 

 for paying out and retrieval, tension-induced rotation and torque in the 

 cable are the important factors. In general, shipping and loading are 

 easier than the cable laying and retrieving. 



Cable Transport . Cables are manufactured in several stages. At 

 each stage a cable is fed into a machine or a series of machines and then 

 taken up on a reel. Later it is transported to another machine and the 

 next stage. After the cable is fabricated it is either wound in a ship- 

 ping reel or stowed in a pan. This may require transferring the cable 

 from the factory reel to a layer shipping reel or pan by means of a line 

 puller. The reel or pan is then lifted on to a flatbed truck or a rail- 

 road car for shipment. Several cable manufacturers have facilities for 

 directly loading cable ships or barges. Cable reels as large as 15 feet 

 in diameter and weighing 50 tons can be shipped by truck and railroad 

 car. 



If the cable assembly is to contain in-line packages such as hydro- 

 phones or engineering sensors, it is transported to an assemblv plant 

 where the cable is streamed out, cut and spliced to include the in-line 

 packages. The cable is then shipped to the loading site in one of two 

 ways. It can be wound on a three-flanged reel and shipped by flatbed 

 truck or rail. The third flange is used to separate the cable and the 

 packages for smoother winding. Or, it can be coiled on a flatbed deck 

 for shipment. 



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