KR20140003224A - Floating structure - Google Patents

Abstract

A floating structure is disclosed. The floating structure according to the present invention includes: a leg for vertically moving a driving body and including a rack gear; and a foreign substance removal device next to the leg. The foreign substance removal device includes: a removal part engaged with the rack gear at a distance; a power transmission part for transmitting rotatory power to the removal part; and a driving part which is joined to the power transmission part and which rotates the removal part by corresponding to the vertical movement of the leg.

Description

{FLOATING STRUCTURE}

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a floating structure for removing marine life, foreign matter, and the like in a rack gear of a leg of a floating structure.

As the demand for environmentally friendly energy development grows, the development using wind power generators is getting popular all over the world. However, installation of wind turbines requires strict environmental conditions. For example, the place where the wind turbine is installed should be a place where a certain level of wind speed can be guaranteed to obtain significant rotation of the blade, and the pollution caused by the noise generated when driving the wind turbine should not be an issue do. Even if the environmental conditions are satisfied, there is a problem that a very large area of space is required for installing the wind turbine generator.

In recent years, interest in offshore wind turbines has increased, which is relatively free from the above-mentioned constraints. Offshore wind turbines can be installed in a variety of ways, but generally they are constructed by dividing the components into several units, making them on land, and then transferring the units to sea for assembly.

A ship that moves offshore wind turbine units on the sea to the sea and installs offshore wind turbine generators is commonly referred to as a wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV).

Wind turbine installation The ship can be operated in the transit mode and the jack-up mode due to the nature of the operation. Specifically, the ship installed with the wind turbine moves to the navigation mode to the position where the off-axis wind turbine is to be installed. In navigation mode, the legs may remain moved upward of the body to reduce resistance by seawater. After that, the ship installed with the wind power generator is switched to the jack-up mode, the leg is lowered into the sea floor, and then the main body is lifted up along the leg so that the main body is separated from the sea level by a certain distance. When the main body reaches a certain position, the wind turbine installation ship stops the movement of the main body and installs the offshore wind turbine generator. When the installation is completed, proceed in the reverse order to move to the next installation position.

However, the above-described conventional techniques have the following problems.

The floating structure performs the work to be accomplished with the main body being separated from the sea surface for a predetermined time. While the floating structure works in a state where the body is spaced from the sea level, a part of the leg is immersed in water for a certain period of time, while the legs are adhered to foreign matter such as barnacle, shellfish and the like.

The foreign matter adhering to the legs acts as a factor for increasing the load of the legs when lifting the legs, which not only exerts a load on the operating system of the legs, but also may cause corrosion of the legs.

In addition, if a foreign matter adheres to a driveline (e.g., a rack gear) responsible for the movement of the leg, it may cause malfunction.

The patent literature provides only a way to treat marine life on the outer surface of the hull, but it does not have a configuration applicable to the operating system of the legs of the floating structure and causes the legs to corrode when lifting the legs There is no means to remove foreign matter such as marine life, sand and marine litter that are caught in the rack gears of the legs.

Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2011-0023607

The present embodiment rotates the removed portion of the helical gear shape corresponding to the teeth of the rack gear in accordance with the raising and lowering speed of the leg so that it is possible to move the rack gear of the floating structure such as marine creature, And to provide a floating structure that can remove various foreign substances cleanly.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a leg comprising: a leg which includes a rack gear; And a foreign material removing device disposed adjacent to the leg, wherein the foreign material removing device includes a removing part arranged to be engaged with the rack gear while maintaining an interval therebetween; A power transmission unit that transmits a rotational force to the removal unit; And a driving unit coupled to the power transmitting unit and configured to rotate the removing unit in accordance with the rising and falling speed of the leg.

The removing unit may include: a gear-shaped body engaged with the teeth of the rack gear; A brush mounted on a surface of the body; And a rotating shaft coupled to the rotational center of the body.

The power transmission unit may include a vertical bearing block coupled to one side of a rotating shaft of the body; A driven bevel gear coupled to the other side of the rotating shaft of the body; A power transmission shaft including a drive bevel gear engaged with the driven bevel gear and a worm wheel positioned opposite to the driven bevel gear; And a worm shaft coupled to the worm wheel in a worm gear structure.

The driving unit may include: a motor generating a rotational force to be transmitted to the power transmitting unit; And a gear box coupled between the output shaft of the shaft coupler and the motor such that rotational force of the motor is transmitted to the shaft coupler.

An encoder for measuring a speed of the legs to ascend and descend; The controller may further include a control unit for controlling the operation speed of the driving unit so that the removing unit removes impurities from the rack gear in accordance with the ascending / descending speed measured by the encoder.

The present invention provides a foreign matter removing device configured to rotate a removing part of a helical gear shape to a driving part and a power transmitting part so that the removing part of the foreign material removing device is engaged with the rack gears of the legs of the floating structure, And the brushes are mounted on the damper so that the removed portion is rotated in accordance with the rising and falling speed of the legs so that the brushes coupled to the damper of the helical gear shape are prevented from being in contact with various foreign matter There is an advantage in that it can be removed.

In addition, the embodiment of the present invention is advantageous in that the removing brush is made of a wire brush or a hard metal type brush or the like, so that foreign materials attached to the teeth of the rack gear are directly scratched and removed.

Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, since the rotation axis of the removing unit can be arranged in parallel to the longitudinal direction of the rack gear, the side wall in the lower or upper leg well of the leg or the lower leg well of the main deck, It can be disposed on the inner wall of the upper leg support portion of the deck or on the inner wall of the leg support portion below or above the jack case so that foreign matters in the teeth of the rack gear of the leg can be removed at various points.

1 is a perspective view showing a floating structure according to an embodiment of the present invention;
2 is a view showing a jack-up state of the floating structure of FIG. 1;
Figure 3 is a cross-sectional view of the leg well shown in Figure 2;
4 is a device configuration diagram for explaining the coupling relationship and action of the foreign material removing device.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

In the following description of the present invention, detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a floating structure according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a view showing a jack-up state of the floating structure of FIG.

1 and 2, a floating structure 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a main body 10 that can float in water, legs 20 that penetrate the main body 10 in the up and down direction, And a leg supporting portion 30 for supporting the leg 20 in a vertical direction relative to the leg 20 and the main body 10.

The floating structure 1 may be a wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) or a jack-up platform. In this embodiment, the floating structure 1 is a wind turbine installation vessel I'll explain it to you. However, the spirit of the present invention is not limited to this, and any floating structure having a jack-up mode to be described later may be included in the scope of the present invention.

The body 10 may have a planar structure of a floating rectangular shape as shown in FIG. 1, and may be formed in a structure having a wide width, a low height, and a short length as compared with a general commercial line (for example, a container line) . However, this is merely an example, and the body 10 according to the teachings of the present invention may have any three-dimensional structure in which the legs 20 and the leg supports 30 can be installed.

The main body 10 can be loaded with the load 2 according to the function of the floating structure 1. A blade, a nacelle, a tower, or the like, which is a part of an offshore wind power generator, can be loaded as the object 2 to be loaded on the main body 10 and the loading unit 2 for fixing the object 2 to the main body 10 (12) may be provided. The type and loading method of the load 2 shown in Fig. 1 are merely an example, and the load 2 can be loaded in various forms within the scope of the present invention. For example, the blades and nacelle can be loaded separately from each other, and the load 2 can be a riser pipe if the floating structure 1 is a jack-up platform.

In addition, the main body 10 may be provided with a propulsion device (not shown) for movement and position control.

A plurality of legs 20 may be provided depending on the purpose of use of the floating structure 1. In the embodiment of the present invention, a total of four legs 20 are provided, one pair at each of the port and starboard sides of the main body 10 I will explain what is provided as an example.

The leg 20 is installed to penetrate the main body 10 in the vertical direction and a leg well 50 through which the leg 20 passes is formed in the main body 10. The legs 20 can be moved downward of the main body 10 and fixed to the seabed so that they are rigid enough to withstand the load of the main body 10 in the jack-up state of FIG. 2, , A triangular truss structure, or the like. In the present embodiment, the legs 20 are formed in a triangular truss structure.

The leg support portion 30 is provided at a position corresponding to the leg well 50 so that the leg 20 can pass therethrough and the leg support portion 30 is provided at a position corresponding to the leg well 20, . Specifically, the leg support portion 30 is provided with a driving device such as a motor, and the leg portion 20 is moved up and down with respect to the main body 10 by the operation of the driving device, In the vertical direction. For example, a jack case 35, which is a driving device, may be disposed on the leg support portion 30. [ The jack case 35 can be understood as a driving device for moving up and down the legs 20 or for moving up and down the main body 10 by the relative movement with the legs 20. The jack case 35 is provided with a pinion gear and a motor and the leg 20 is provided with a rack gear so that the relative movement of the leg 20 and the main body 10 in the up- .

The vertical movement of the leg 20 and the main body 10 in the present embodiment means that the leg 20 moves in the vertical direction with respect to the main body 10 and that the main body 10 moves in the vertical direction relative to the leg 20 It will be understood that the present invention includes both moving in the up and down direction.

On the other hand, the main body 10 may be provided with a crane 40 capable of installing the offshore wind power generator by transporting the loads 2 such as blades, nacelles, and towers.

The floating structure 1 having the above configuration can be operated in a transit mode and a jack-up mode.

The floating structure (1) moves to the navigation mode to the position where the offshore wind turbine is to be installed. In the general navigation mode, the floating structure 1 can move in a state in which the legs 20 are moved upward in order to reduce the resistance by the legs 20.

The floating structure 1 can be moved to the target position and then accurately positioned for lowering the leg 20 using dynamic positioning. The automatic position control can be continued until the leg 20 descends and touches the seabed B.

Thereafter, the floating structure 1 is switched to the jack-up mode to insert the legs 20 into the seabed B. Fig. In this process, the legs 20 can be moved downwardly of the main body 10 by the gravity and the driving device of the leg support 30.

When the lower end of the leg 20 touches the seabed B, the leg 20 can no longer move downward. In this state, the floating structure 1 actuates the driving device of the leg support 30 to move the main body 10 upward along the legs 20. The load of the main body 10 acts to force the leg 20 into the seabed B so that the leg 20 penetrates into the seabed B and is fixed.

The main body 10 may be spaced apart from the sea surface S by moving the main body 10 upward along the legs 20 so that the main body 10 is separated from the sea surface S, The state that is different from the set work position can be referred to as a jack-up state.

The floating structure 1 is installed in the jack-up state by using the crane 40, and when the installation work is completed, the operation can be started again in the reverse order of the above procedure.

The method of switching the floating structure 1 to the jack-up state is merely an example, and various changes can be made within the scope of the present invention.

The foreign material removing device 100 may also be installed to remove foreign matter adhering to or existing in the leg 20 around the leg well 50 or the leg supporting portion 30. [

For example, the installation position of the foreign material removing device 100 may be provided for each of the legs 20, but the side walls 200 and 210 or the lower side walls of the lower leg 52 of the leg 20, The inner side wall 220 of the lower leg well of the main deck 11 of the main body 10 or the inner side wall 230 of the upper leg supporting portion 30 of the main deck 11 or the lower or upper legs of the jack case 35 Can be installed on the inner side walls (240, 250) of the support part (30).

Here, the legs 20 include a cord 22 serving as a pillar when formed in a triangular truss structure, a cord 22 connected to the cord 22 and protruding in pairs on both sides of the cord 22, And a rack gear 21 extending along the longitudinal direction.

The foreign material removing apparatus 100 may be configured as shown in Figs. 3 and 4 so as to remove foreign matter on the tooth surface 21a which abuts on the pinion gear to be engaged with the rack gear 21. Fig.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the leg well shown in FIG. 2, and FIG. 4 is a device configuration diagram for explaining the coupling relationship and action of the foreign substance removing device.

3, the leg 20 may comprise three cords 22 and a brace 23 connecting each cord 22 to each other, in a triangular truss structure.

Since the rack gear 21 protrudes from both sides of the cord 22 and extends along the longitudinal direction of the cord 22 so that the foreign material removing apparatus 100 can remove foreign matter from the rack gear 21, May be disposed around the leg well (50) corresponding to the number of cords (22) of the leg (20).

That is, in the case where the leg 20 is a triangular truss structure, the foreign material removing device 100 is made of three pieces per leg 20 so as to surround the leg well 50 or the leg hole 20 corresponding to the arrangement position of the cord 22 And may be installed at the installation position of the foreign material removing apparatus 100 described above.

3 and 4 is a device structure for removing marine life, foreign matter, and the like in the rack gear 21 of the leg 20 by a helical gear method, A main body 10; A leg 20 passing through the main body 10 in a vertical direction; And a leg support 30 for supporting the leg 20 and the body 10 relative to each other in the vertical direction.

For example, the foreign material removing apparatus 100 may include at least one removing unit 110a and 110b disposed to be engaged with the rack gear 21 of the leg 20 while maintaining a gap therebetween, And a driving unit 130 coupled to the power transmitting unit 120 and rotating the removing units 110a and 110b in accordance with the rising and falling speed of the legs 20 .

4, the shape, the coupling relationship, and the operation relationship of the foreign material removing apparatus 100 can be more specifically described.

Referring to FIG. 4, the removing units 110a and 110b may include a body 101, a brush 102, and a rotating shaft 103. Referring to FIG.

The body 101 may have any one of a helical gear shape, a corrugated water tank shape, and a wrinkled cylindrical shape so that the body 101 can be engaged with the teeth of the rack gear 21.

In addition, the body 101 may have an integral structure or may be manufactured to be disassembled or assembled into several pieces.

At this time, the helical gear dimension of the body 101 is determined by the fact that the body 101 of the removal parts 110a and 110b is rotated by the driving part 130 and the power transmission part 120 and that the rack gear 21 of the leg is lifted So that the interdental space of the rack gear 21 can be formed to be able to pass continuously through the helical gear teeth of the body 101 while rotating.

That is, the helical gear teeth of the body 101 and the teeth of the rack gear 21 may not interfere with each other except for the brushes 102.

The brush 102 may be coupled to the body 101 in a detachable form by bolt coupling or may be coupled to the body 101 in a sliding engagement manner using protrusions and grooves.

The thread direction of the helical gear formed on the pair of bodies 101 or the rotational direction of the body 101 can be determined based on the fact that the rack gear 21 does not interfere with the ascending and descending of the rack gear 21, .

However, the size of the body 101 and the dimensions of helical gears may be determined corresponding to the size and gear dimensions of the rack gear 21, and thus may not be limited to the shapes and sizes shown in FIG. 3 or FIG.

The brush 102 is mounted on the surface of the body 101 and can be attached to the body 101 in a detachable manner.

The brush 102 can be engaged with the helical gear tooth surface of the body 101 and can take a role of scraping off foreign matters on the tooth surface 21a of the rack gear 21.

For example, the brush 102 may be comprised of a wire brush material, or a brush in the form of a rigid metal.

The rotating shaft 103 may be coupled to the center of rotation of the body 101.

These removal parts 110a and 110b are in contact with the rack gear 21 protruding on both sides of the cord 22 on the basis of the cord 22 of the leg 22 and extending along the longitudinal direction of the cord 22 The rack gear 21 can be arranged in pairs in parallel with the longitudinal direction of the rack gear 21 on both sides of the rack gear 21. [

That is, the longitudinal direction of the rotating shaft 103 of the removing parts 110a, 110b may be parallel to the longitudinal direction of the rack gear 21. [

The power transmitting portion 120 may include a vertical bearing block 121 coupled to one end of the rotating shaft 103 of the body 101 of the removing portions 110a and 110b.

The vertical bearing block 121 may play a role of rotatably supporting the rotating shaft 103 of the body 101.

The power transmission unit 120 includes a support 122 coupled between the vertical bearing block 121 and the mounting position of the foreign material removing device of the main body 10, And a combined driven bevel gear 123.

The power transmission unit 120 includes a drive bevel gear 124 coupled to the driven bevel gear 123 and a power transmission shaft 124 coupled to the opposite end of the drive bevel gear 124, And a worm shaft 127 coupled to the worm wheel 126 in a worm gear structure.

Here, although the power transmission shaft 125 is not shown, it may further include a bearing block that rotatably supports the power transmission shaft 125, or is supported on a structural member such as the main body 10 or a side wall in the leg well have.

The power transmitting portion 120 may include a horizontal bearing block 128 for rotatably supporting both ends of the warm shaft 127 and a shaft coupler 129 coupled to the end of the warm shaft 127 .

The power transmitting portion 120 is configured by a gear and a shaft connecting method, but may be configured as a pulley and a belt type, which are typically used for power transmission, so that the present invention is not limited thereto.

The driving unit 130 includes a motor bracket 131 installed at or around the installation position of the foreign material removing device of the main body 10 and a motor 130 supported by the motor bracket 131 to generate a rotational force to be transmitted to the power transmitting unit 120. [ And a gear box 133 coupled between the output shaft 129a of the shaft coupler 129 and the motor 132 so that the rotational force of the motor 132 is transmitted to the shaft coupler 129. [ have.

The gear box 133 is capable of decelerating the high speed rotation speed of the motor 132 to a proper speed necessary for the power transmission unit 120 while adjusting the rotation force of the motor 132 to an output of a size required for removing foreign matter .

In addition, the foreign material removing apparatus 100 may include an encoder 140 for measuring a speed of rising and falling of the legs.

For example, the encoder 140 may be a rotary type speed sensing sensor that contacts the outer surface of the cord 22 of the leg and senses the speed of rising and falling of the leg.

In addition, the encoder 140 may be mounted on the mounting table 142. The mounting table 142 can be supported by a support base 122 or a frame of the main body 10. [

The foreign material removing unit 100 removes the foreign material from the rack gear 21 by the removal units 110a and 110b in response to the rising and falling speed of the leg 20 measured by the encoder 140 And a control unit 141 for controlling the operation speed.

The brushes 102 coupled to the bodies 101 of the helical gears of the deflectors 110a and 110b scrape off the foreign substances on the tooth surface 21a of the rack gear 21, The rotational speed of the defrosters 110a and 110b can be synchronized with the rising and falling speed of the legs 20 by controlling the operating speed of the legs 120. [

The control unit 141 is connected to the encoder 140 to receive the rising and falling speed measurement values and electrically connects the output terminal of the control unit 141 and the input terminal of the motor 132 of the driving unit 120, A motor driver, a speed control circuit, and the like so as to control the operation speed of the motor 132 in response to an output signal of the control unit 141. [

Hereinafter, the operation of the present embodiment will be described.

The floating structure 1 can lower or raise the leg 20 at the target position.

The control unit 141 controls the driving unit 130 so that the removing units 110a and 110b are operated at a speed synchronized with the ascending and descending of the legs 20 through the power transmitting unit 120. [ .

The brushes 102 of the body 101 provided in the rotary removing parts 110a and 110b are rotated in the space between the teeth of the rack gear 21 similarly to the rotation of the helical gear, ) Is scratched and removed.

The rack gear 21 from which the foreign object has been removed can be hermetically contacted with the pinion gear of the jack case 35 of the leg support portion 30 shown in Fig. 2, so that the rack gear 21 and the pinion gear It is possible to provide a reliable jack-up mode operation performance to the floating structure by improving the coupling state.

While the present invention has been described with respect to specific embodiments of the floating structure according to the embodiments of the present invention, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited thereto, and should be construed as having the widest range according to the basic idea disclosed in this specification do. Skilled artisans may implement a pattern of features that are not described in a combinatorial and / or permutational manner with the disclosed embodiments, but this is not to depart from the scope of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be readily made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

100: Foreign matter removing device 110a, 110b:
120: Power transmission unit 130:
140: encoder 141 control unit

Claims (5)

Leg to move the main body in the vertical direction, including a rack gear;
Including a foreign material removal device located adjacent to the leg,
The foreign matter removing device comprises:
A removal unit disposed to engage with the rack gear while maintaining a distance therebetween;
A power transmission unit that transmits a rotational force to the removal unit; And
And a driving unit coupled to the power transmission unit, the driving unit rotating the removal unit in response to the lifting speed of the leg. The method of claim 1,
The removing unit
A gear-shaped body meshed with the teeth of the rack gear;
A brush mounted to the surface of the body; And
Floating structure comprising a rotary shaft coupled to the center of rotation of the body. 3. The method of claim 2,
The power transmission unit includes:
A vertical bearing block coupled to one side of the rotating shaft of the body;
A driven bevel gear coupled to the other side of the rotating shaft of the body;
A power transmission shaft including a driving bevel gear meshed with the driven bevel gear and a worm wheel positioned opposite to the driving bevel gear; And
Floating structure comprising a worm shaft coupled to the worm wheel in a worm gear structure. The method of claim 3, wherein
The driving unit includes:
A motor generating a rotational force to be transmitted to the power transmission unit; And
And a gearbox coupled between the output shaft of the shaft coupler and the motor such that the rotational force of the motor is transmitted to the shaft coupler. The method of claim 1,
An encoder measuring a lifting speed of the leg;
And a controller configured to control an operating speed of the driving unit to remove the foreign matter of the rack gear in response to the lifting speed measured by the encoder.

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