The driving force behind a pipe laying carousel

A marine engineering company required an ac drive system and motors for a pipe laying carousel on board a ship. Six motors rated at 110kw with 175% overload for 40s had to rotate a 7000-tonne carousel at speeds and loads matched to widely variable conditions. Additional service supplies for deck lighting, hydraulics and general distribution were also needed.

The system had to be able to run with two out of six drives faulted with automatic allocation of mater/slave functionality for the load share system. Rapid installation on the deck of the ship was important, and as always the delivery schedule was ambitious.

 

Our Solution

Iconsys designed and built a drive system utilising six control techniques unidrives (frame 6). The complete drive and control system was built inside a 25ft container with extensive plug and socket interfaces for the control and auxiliary supplies.

Standard air-cooled inverters were built into cubicles fitted with oversize roof fans and door ventilation to dissipate the heat produced by the inverter and ancillary equipment into the container. 20kw of air conditioning equipment was fitted to the container to regulate the internal temperature. Condensers suitable for a marine environment were also chosen.

 

Results

• Delivering system on time to dock side
• Onboard installation & commissioning ahead of schedule

 

Client Feedback

Delivering the system on time and initially commissioned on the dockside, the carousel was then fitted to the ship and commissioning completed. The socket interface enabled installation to be completed ahead of schedule.