OSCAR - Optical SCanning Apparatus for Ropes
Synthetic ropes are becoming very widely used as mooring lines on deepwater platforms. At present the only way of assessing the condition of fibre rope mooring lines is through periodic ROV inspection of the entire line. This method is expensive and unreliable, especially as it only examines the rope service and is unable to detect any internal deterioration of the rope. Consequently there is a compelling need for a proven NDT technique for monitoring fibre rope mooring lines in service.
The OSCAR system detects fibre rope deterioration and impending rope failure by monitoring slight changes in rope elongation both locally and over the entire rope length. A laser signal is transmitted through an optical fibre transducer and is detected by a monitoring device, called a Brillouin Optical Time Domain Reflectometer, located in a control room on the floating platform.
