JPS5810308A - Apparatus for producing long float - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a long buoyant body for imparting buoyancy to long bodies such as cables such as electric cables, communication groups, optical fiber cables, and twiya ropes used on the seabed or under the sea. It is something.

For example, as shown in No. 11'7+, when the cable 21 and the underwater equipment 22 are thrown into the sea from a ship to perform excavation or the like, there is an option to make the cable 21 as light as possible and float it on the water. Especially in optical fiber cables (hereinafter simply referred to as optical cables) that have been used for information transmission in recent years, the optical fibers are weak, so if they are heavy, the optical cables will become distorted due to their own weight, making it impossible to control equipment used on the seabed or under the sea. It turns out.

In order to give buoyancy to these cables, conventionally, as shown in FIG. 1, buoyancy bodies (hollow containers) 23 were attached to the cables 21 at various locations to control the tension of the cables. However, with this method, it is necessary to attach and detach the buoyancy body 23 each time the cable 210 is wound up and returned to spring, which is extremely troublesome.

In addition, since the conductor (usually copper) of a composite cable that combines an optical cable and an electric cable is heavy, cables that float on water (with a specific gravity of 10 or less) are easy to place.

A cable such as the one shown in FIG. 2 can be considered as such a lightweight cable. In the figure, 24 is a long buoyant body, around which a plurality of electric cables 27 and a plurality of optical cables 28 are twisted.

The long buoyant body 24 has a tension member 25 in the center and a micro balloon (micro hollow body) 26 around it.
It is made by solidifying it with a thermosetting resin. Especially in the case of composite cables like the one shown in Figure 2, which are used several thousand meters under the sea,
The buoyant body 24 must withstand several hundred atmospheres. Therefore, the tension member 25 is preferably made of glass fiber, carbon fiber, Kevlar (trade name of DuPont) fiber, etc., and the micro balloon 26 is preferably made of glass, alumina, carbon, etc. that can withstand several hundred atmospheres. I like the micro balloons.

Columnar bodies manufactured by a batch process, such as filling a mold with microballoons and impregnating them with a thermosetting resin and curing them, or kneading the thermosetting resin and microballoons and curing them, are connected by adhesive etc. However, there was a limit to the molding length, troublesome connections, and problems with strength.

Therefore, a device for continuously manufacturing long buoyant bodies has been desired.

The present invention was made to solve two problems: the microballoon is dense, close to true specific gravity, uniform over its entire length, and strong enough to withstand large external pressure. It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus capable of manufacturing a long buoyant body completely continuously.

The present invention is a vertical manufacturing device that continuously manufactures a long buoyant body in which microballoons are molded and hardened with a thermosetting resin around a central tension member, and in which the tension member is placed upwardly in the center. A device 1 (t) for moving the microballoon further downwards, a microballoon supply port that sequentially moves the microballoons around the tension member from the top, a vibrating section that vibrates the microballoons to densely pack the microballoons, and This is an apparatus for manufacturing an elongated buoyant body, characterized in that it is provided with a resin impregnating section that impregnates the cavity of the balloon with the liquid resin, and a heating curing section that hardens the resin-impregnated microballoon.

By the method of the present invention! The structure of the long buoyant body to be manufactured is:
The cross-sectional shape is not limited to the center buoyant body 24 shown in Fig. 2, but may be oval, polygonal, or other irregular shapes in addition to circular, and the tension member may be a plurality of two stars. It may be.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained by examples using the drawings.

Fig. 1 is a vertical cross-sectional view showing an embodiment of the device of the present invention. Guide rollers 5 and pinch rollers 17 are provided for causing the roller to run downward from one side to the center of the device.

In the device of the present invention, each part is arranged in a vertical shape, and for molding, a cylindrical mold 6 made of, for example, iron, steel, stainless steel, etc. passes through each part and is installed centered on the tension member 1'. There is.

In order to supply microballoons (hereinafter referred to as balloons 2) made of glass, alumina, carbon, etc. to this mold 6, a conical-shaped microballoon supply lower is provided at the top, and this supply lower In order to close the gap between the inserted balloons 2 and make them dense, a vibrating section 8 that vibrates the balloons is arranged at the bottom thereof. The densified balloon 2 is sent to the upper part of the mold 6.

A resin-impregnated part 9 is provided at the upper part of the mold 6. The resin-impregnated part 9 is provided with an injection port IO around the balloon 2, and a filter of several microns or less is used for this to prevent the balloon 2 from flowing out. Around it is a resin supply tank 1.
1 is placed in the balloon 2, which is evacuated through the exhaust pipe 12 to suck in the liquid resin 3 from the resin tank 13, and also evacuates the gap in the balloon 2 through the injection port IO to inject the resin 3 into it. It is used to replace and impregnate.

The resin 3 used here is preferably a liquid thermosetting resin, such as a fusible epoxy resin, an unsaturated polyester resin, a urethane resin, an acrylic resin, or a silicone resin, which has excellent flexibility. A buoyant body is obtained. Further, the resin 3 was added in advance before curing.

The resin-impregnated microballoon 2 descends within the mold 6 and enters the heat curing section 15 with the heat insulating backing 14 in between. In the heating curing section 15, a heating heater 16 is arranged around the mold 6, and by heating the liquid resin 3 to a curing temperature,
It undergoes a hardening reaction and solidifies, completing the molding and hardening of the buoyancy body 4.

The molded and hardened buoyancy body 4 is taken up by the pinch roller 17 and wound up as a long buoyancy body 4 by a winding device (not shown).

Next, a method for manufacturing a long buoyant body using the manufacturing apparatus of the present invention configured as described above will be described. First, the tension member tortoise is passed through the center of the apparatus. In this case, it is necessary to apply some tension in order to position it straight in the center.

Next, the microballoons 2 are introduced and supplied from the microballoon supply lower, and then vibrated by the vibrating section 8 to densely fill the microballoons. In this case, microballoon/2 is a hollow body of several 71 to several tens of microns, with an apparent specific gravity of 01 to 02,
Although the true specific gravity is 0.2 to 0.3, for example, in order to obtain a buoyant body with a true specific gravity of 0.6, the balloon content must be 60% by weight or more. In the conventional batch method as mentioned above, when microballoons with such a high content are kneaded with liquid resin or thermoplastic resin, shear (shear stress) is applied, which destroys the hollow balloons. As a result, the specific gravity increases, making it impossible to manufacture a long balloon with a uniform overall length.However, according to the present invention, vibrations are applied sequentially and densely packed, so that no undue pressure is applied to the balloon. Therefore, the balloon is not destroyed, and a buoyant body with a uniform gravity close to the true specific gravity can be obtained over the entire length.

Next, the densely packed microballoon 2 is impregnated with liquid resin 3 in a vacuum state by the resin impregnating section 9. In conventional batch-type methods, it was difficult to cast microballoons with a content of 60% by weight or more into long cylinders due to the lack of fluidity of the liquid resin. Since small areas are continuously impregnated with liquid resin, the entire length of the balloon can be uniformly impregnated with resin without destroying the balloon.

In this way, the molding of Micro Balloon/2 and resin impregnation are performed without destroying the balloon, so a buoyant body with a true specific gravity (for example, 0.6) can be obtained, and the specific gravity can change even in water containing hundreds of gases. You can get the effect that you don't have.

Next, the resin-impregnated microballoon 2 is heated and cured by the heat curing section 15 (9-), and then wound up by a winding device. In this case as well, since heating is carried out continuously, a long buoyant body that is uniformly hardened over its entire length can be obtained.

As described above, the present invention is a vertical manufacturing apparatus for continuously manufacturing a long buoyant body, comprising: an apparatus for causing the Tae/jeong member to run downward from above at the center; Sequentially, the micro balloon supply port, vibrating part,
Since a resin impregnation section and a heat curing section are provided, each process is performed continuously.In particular, the molding of the buoyant body and the resin impregnation are performed by continuously applying vibration to the continuous body to densely fill it, and then continuously applying liquid This can be done by vacuum impregnation with resin, so no excessive pressure is applied to the balloon during molding, so the balloon content can be increased (e.g. 60% by weight or more) without destroying the balloon. Since it is easily carried out uniformly over the entire length, it is close to the true specific gravity (e.g. 0.6),
There is an advantage that a long buoyant body that does not change in specific gravity even in water at several hundred atmospheres and has uniform characteristics over its entire length can be manufactured easily and continuously.

Furthermore, the device of the present invention has a cylindrical mold (
By changing the cross-sectional shape of 6), there is an advantage that a long buoyant body having an arbitrary cross-sectional shape can be manufactured.

Furthermore, the device of the present invention has the advantage that by using the above-mentioned flexible resin, it is possible to manufacture a long buoyant body that has excellent flexibility and can be attached to a drum with a spring.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing an example of a conventional underwater cable in use. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing an example of the structure of a composite cable. FIG. 3 is a longitudinal sectional view showing an embodiment of the device of the present invention. 1.25...Tension member, 2126...Micro balloon, 3...tJL 4, 23, 24.
Buoyant body, 5. Guide roller, 6. Molding mold, 7. Micro balloon supply port, 8 Vibration section, 9. Resin impregnation section, 10. Injection port, II.. Resin supply tank, 12・・・
Exhaust pipe, 13 Resin tank, 14...insulation backing,
15... Heat curing section, 16... Heater, +7...
... Pinch roller, 21... Cable, 22... Undersea equipment, 27... Electrical cable, 28... Optical fiber cable. Yoshi 1 figure 72 figure fr3 figure

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A vertical manufacturing device that continuously manufactures long buoyant bodies made by molding and hardening microballoons with thermosetting resin around the periphery of a central tension member. a device for moving the microballoons from above to below; a microballoon supply port that sequentially supplies the microballoons around the tension member from above; a vibrating section that applies vibration to the microballoons to densely pack them;
An apparatus for manufacturing an elongated buoyant body, comprising: a resin impregnating section for impregnating the voids of the microballoon with the liquid resin; and a heating curing section for curing the resin-impregnated microballoon.