Running Line Tensiometer

MTNW Updates US Army Corp Dredge Potter Mooring Monitoring System

November 7, 2011. Seattle, WA. Measurement Technology NW (MTNW) announces successful implementation of its running line tensiometer technology with the US Army Corp of Engineers Dredge Potter. MTNW collaborated with C&J Offshore and Ockerman Consulting to ensure the mooring line monitoring project was successful from the initial design to the final installation and commissioning.

The US Army Corp of Engineers Dredge Potter is based near St. Louis and is charged with keeping the Mississippi passable. The Potter is a 240’ diesel electric vessel with a draft of 7’6″. It was recently retrofit during a deckhouse rebuild with a new haul winch and head hoist control system in 2011. The USACE contracted with Jensen Maritime Consultants (a Crowley company) and Ockerman Consulting to design the control system. C&J Offshore systems from Anacortes, WA were contracted to manufacture consoles and install these new controls. Ockerman Consulting chose MTNW’s Line Control Instrument RL-20175K 3-sheave running line tensiometers (RLTs) to monitor 2 mooring/hauling winches with 1.125″ wire rope with a peak tension requirement of 84,000lbs.

USACE Dredge Potter II

“The MTNW line riders installed quickly and easily. The RLTs are obviously built for a rugged environment and will have many years of service,” said John Ockerman, Owner, Ockerman Consulting. “The displays are intuitive and easy to work with. If you look at the whole bridge control console, from analog sweep meters to the standard PC HMI, the MTNW LCI-90i bright display jumps out at you from across the bridge.” The RLTs are integrated with the Dredge Automation Systems and Shipboard Integrated Control & Monitoring Systems. This system’s architecture provides real time and historic data to the ship’s engineers and dredge production performance data remotely to USACE headquarters.

Dredge Potter Controls

“MTNW RLTs are being used more frequently for mooring monitoring because our design provides a smaller footprint and rapidly deployable solution for retrofitting existing winches,” said Tom Rezanka, Managing Director of MTNW. “We can deploy on virtually any winch, with an installation time measured in hours, not weeks or months. In every environment, our customers are interested in monitoring and data-logging possible points of failure; and the mooring lines are a critical part of any dredge operations .”

Rezanka explains, “This is MTNW’s first installation on a dust pan dredge on the Mississippi. Our RLTs are frequently used to monitor pipe lay barges for offshore oil & gas installations around the world. We are pleased to be supporting the USACE here in the USA.

Measurement Technology NW, a Seattle, Wash. based company, provides a wide range of precision winch monitoring and control products, including the LCI-90i and LCI-80 (winch displays), WinchDAC (winch monitoring software), running line tensiometers or line riders, and much more. Look for MTNW at the Workboat Show, New Orleans, November 28 – Dec 1, 2011 (Booth 2566).

Running Line Tensiometer on Dredge Potter

Tags: dredge, dust pan dredge, LCI, LCI-80, LCI-90i, Line Rider, line riders, mississippi river dredging, mooring line tensiometer, mooring monitoring, MTNW, Running Line Tensiometer, St. Louis district, Workboat show

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Line Control Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

MTNW & Delmar – New Approaches to Offshore Mooring

Delmar RLT

Measurement Technology NW (MTNW) implemented its running line tensiometer (RLT) technology with a Samson synthetic rope in an offshore mooring monitoring project engineered by Delmar Systems. This implementation is MTNW’s first use of tension measurement technology with 2”+ synthetic ropes.

Recently, Delmar Systems was contracted to moor an offshore supply vessel (OSV) to a major offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The OSV is being used as a support vessel while dive operations are conducted. The OSV is using a three-point mooring system consisting of two stern hawser lines attached to the platform and a bow mooring line attached to a preset suction pile foundation in 2,900 feet of water. The mooring system had to be as robust as possible while still maintaining ease of handling and rigging by the vessel crew.

To achieve a higher Maximum Breaking Load on the OSV bow mooring line while maintaining deck maneuverability, Delmar chose Samson’s AmSteel-Blue HMPE rope made of high modulus polypropylene (HMPE) as the bow winch line. An MTNW RL-20175K running line tensiometer provided tension measurement for the bow line. During the design phase of the project, MTNW thoroughly tested and calibrated the RLT using the specified 2¼” AmSteel-Blue rope.

“This is MTNWs first use of an RLT to measure tension in a major synthetic mooring line of this large diameter,” said Tom Rezanka, managing director of MTNW. “Our RLTs are more commonly used to measure the tension of wire rope, but synthetic lines have different mechanical characteristics under load. We were able to collaborate closely with the R&D engineers at Samson. The monitoring system was fully tested, calibrated and witnessed on an ABS-certified test bed with the resulting accuracy identical to wire rope applications. The trend in mooring is lighter and stronger, which will require increased use of synthetic ropes and new, modern technologies to monitor them. Our sensors and systems are proven to work with any lines.”

“Both the AmSteel-Blue winch line and MTNW’s RLT have been working flawlessly together and have played a vital role in the success of the project,” said Dillon Shuler, engineer at Delmar Systems. Rezanka explains, “MTNW RLTs are being used more frequently for mooring monitoring because our modern design provides a rapidly deployable solution for retrofitting existing winches. We can deploy on virtually any winch, with an installation time measured in hours, not weeks or months.”

“Since the Macondo oil spill, we have seen a significant increase in interest from risk managers and lifting/rigging engineers for determining line and cable tensions in all environments,” said Rezanka. “If it can be monitored, alerted on, and data-logged to a computer it needs to be. Our solutions support the increasing safety requirements for offshore operations and allow project managers to sleep better at night.”

Original article can be found at: http://www.marinelink.com/news/approaches-offshore340216.aspx

Tags: cable tension, delmar, Line Tension, MTNW, RLT, Running Line Tensiometer, Samson synthetic rope, tensiometers, tension measurement

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 11:48 am and is filed under Line Control Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Barge Anchor Winch Monitoring in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

This January we had the opportunity to bring our barge winch monitoring system to Port Harcourt, Nigeria in support of a local oil and gas services company based there.

The Gulf of Guinea is one of the hot new oil patches and it is becoming as criss-crossed with sub-sea pipes as any ocean in the world. Oil companies operating there have to be very careful about where they place their anchors for mooring. And, they need to know immediately if one of their anchors is slipping and could potentially pull through other nearby pipelines. Hence their call to us. We have a growing reputation across the globe for building high-quality, rugged, anchor winch monitoring equipment.

For this barge, we installed nine, RL-20175K running line tensiometers and four local dual-winch displays. Four winches aft and four winches foward, the ninth RLT was for the A&R winch near the bow of the barge.

Here is an image of an RLT getting ready to be installed in front a winch. The hanging chain support allows the RLT to move with the rope as tension increases and decreases during an operation.

Running Line Tensiometer

Here is an image of the winches on the barge. These winches have 1-3/4” IWRC wire rope that will be tensioned up to 90,000lbs.

Winches on the barge

We integrated our LCI-90i Multi-Winch displays to their existing winch controls station. The LCI-90i Winch Displays provide precise tension, speed, and payout readings to the operator as well as preset alarm conditions to alert the crew of a hazardous operating condition. The PC monitors are used as video monitors of the winches and the deck of the barge.

LCI-90i Displays

We look forward to spending more time in Port Harcourt and developing partnerships in that beautiful part of the world.

Tags: anchor monitoring, anchor winch monitoring, barge line control, barge winch monitoring system, cable measurement, cable tension, dual-winch displays, LCI-90i, pipelay barge anchor winch monitoring, port harcourt, Running Line Tensiometer, running line tension, tensiometer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Line Control Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Trawl Winch System Monitoring

Being from the Pacific Northwest, and specifically from the Norwegian/Fisherman’s Terminal area of Seattle, we have always thought that our products and services should play a bigger role in the fishing industry. And now, they are!

In the last year, we’ve started to sell trawl winch monitoring systems into the Pacific and Atlantic trawl fishing fleets.

Like most industries, winch operators in the fishing industry have worked from “gut feel” about how much tension or speed their winch systems, nets, and cables could support.

Now, however, active monitoring of trawl winches has become an important part of fishing efficiently, and data-logging from trawl casts is seen as an important review tool to ensure safety and maximize productivity.

Our combination of running line tensiometers (or dynamometers), local winch displays and software for the bridge are priced competitively with more established and specialized fishing technologies.

Below is an image of our running line tensiometer attached to an articulating arm riding the line of a trawl vessel.

Running Line Tensiometer

Here is an image of our TrawlDAC software showing how operators can quickly see differences in the line tension, speed and total payout.

Trawl DAC

If you are looking to retrofit your trawl monitoring system, please email or call. We’ll be happy to put together a plan for your vessel.

Tags: fishing industry, measurement, payout, Running Line Tensiometer, speed, tension, trawl measurement, trawl monitor, trawl software, trawl winch monitoring, TrawlDAC, winch monitoring

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Line Control Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

US Coast Guard Uses an MTNW Running Line Tensiometer for R&D

Through one of our partners, Dillon Quality Plus, the Coast Guard purchased and used our HRT-3mm Running Line Tensiometer (or line rider) to measure the cable tension loads during some qualification testing on an improved rescue hoist for the Coast Guard H-65 Dolphin Helicopter.

An HH-65C flight crew hoists an injured hiker to safety from a mountain peak in WA at an altitude of 6,300 feet.

The hoist was improved by adding a clutch designed to release if the cable forces exceed a known value. The Coast Guard tested the release force pulling on the cable at various speeds from 1 in/s to 30 in/s. After the hoist passed this testing, the Coast Guard then conducted a number of drop tests that consisted of a 600 pound mass attached to the end of the cable and various amounts of slack in the cable from 1 to 5ft.

During all testing, the tensiometer (or dynamometer) was attached to the cable and the load output was recorded. The HRT-3mm system worked perfectly.

The HRT-3mm is designed to measure running line cable tension loads from 0-13,000 lbs. It only weighs 30lbs and is compact but reliable.

Tags: cable tension monitoring, calibration, Coast Guard, HH-65C, HH-65C Dolphin Helicopter, Injured Hiker, Line Rider, Line Tension, Running Line Tensiometer, Search and Rescue, tensiometers, tension meter, winch payout, winch tension

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Line Control Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.