How Cable Ships lay Undersea Cables and their equipment

Posted by pooja late on November 30th, 2018

Considering the widespread explosion of the telecommunication industry, the demand for underwater communication has increased tremendously. Underwater cables are laid by specially designed ships, which have the capacity of stocking thousands of miles of coiled cable in their holes. Special amplifiers are used to help in boosting up the voltage signal of the cables to ensure they don’t loss signals. Nevertheless, the cable ships must take important measures when laying the fiber optical cables beneath the sea. These measures are required to ensure that the cables don’t break and no damage is incurred by the amplifiers. Furthermore, there must also be the issue of ensuring that the cable can work uninterruptedly for many decades. Additionally, special methods are used to achieve this feat, which in this article we will discuss.

Methods used in laying cable underwater

There are four methods used for different segments of cable route. These include shoreline, shallow waters, hard bottom areas, and Deep Ocean. Let us explain each one to get a clearer picture of when to use one over the other.

Shoreline

To install the underwater cables conduits passing beneath the beach and any shore reef near it. However, directional drilling techniques are mostly used in order to reduce the impact on the cables.

Shallow Waters

Underwater cables are mostly buried in areas where fishing is prevalent in order to minimize damage on them. Trawler equipment such as large beam trawls is mostly used in severing underwater cable. As they pass through the soft bottom areas, which is perfect for ship anchoring, trawling, and other bottom-fishing techniques, the cable is buried typically to be protected from the fishing gear.

Hard Bottom Area

Unlike soft bottom areas, those of hard bottom require the use of armored cables, which is passed through areas where burying them isn’t feasible and anchoring is anticipated. Immediately these cables are placed, literally, they don’t move.

Deep Ocean

In areas where anchoring or bottom fishing gear isn’t possible, underwater cables are laid on the floor of the ocean. Remarkably, since the use of this method, no effect has been experienced.

Equipment for burying underwater cables

The cable vessel pulls an underwater plough, which incessantly cuts a furrow and puts the fiber optic cable into the furrow. The burying device requires substantial amounts of power from the ship for necessary operation and towing.

The plough connected to the device has an altitude control for lowering and lifting it. It also has a television camera, which is connected to check if the cables enter the plough correctly. Furthermore, a magnetometer is used to check if the cable is buried behind the plough rightly or not. Additionally, a depressor arm lifts and closes while the cable-repeater link goes through the attached plough. This type of plough has three separate lines extending from the ship, which is namely – an umbilical cable for the various operations, a tow wire to tow the plough, and the undersea cable itself, which is to be buried.

Author’s Bio

Flower Supreme in this article enlightens his audience on different methods used in laying underwater cables in the sea. She further expounds on the equipment used for this task.