Motorhome Comfort for Freezing Falcon Dam Inspection Team
Working in temperatures of -10°C high up in the French Alps, the Jifmar offshore ROV survey team found that the most comfortable and convenient way to inspect the Tignes Dam was to load their Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV system and themselves into a recreational motorhome. Their mission was to assess the integrity of the dam wall and structures such as water inlets and measure the amount of sedimentation at the bottom of the wall.
Jean-Baptiste Loiselet, ROV operations manager at Jifmar, the offshore service and dam inspection company, described the Falcon as small enough to easily mobilise. The whole system and the surveying team can be contained on board the motorhome for working in remote locations without facilities, and at the end of the day the team could just stow-up and head to a nearby hotel for the night.
Falcon Surveying Payload
To achieve the tasks they integrated a wide range of equipment onto the Falcon system. This included an ARIS Explorer 3000 sonar for extra fine 2D imaging and crack detection, an acoustic positioner and an ethernet HD camera with integrated lasers for scale reference.
Due to the fibre-optic capability, many connection possibilities were available. The team built a small interface pod with a 24V power supply and two Ethernet bulkheads, one for the ARIS or Blueview, and one for the camera and other equipment, while still having spare power and spare RS232 bi-directional channels and Ethernet connections.
Adapted for Harsh Environments
Jifmar, with support from Saab Seaeye, also designed and created added buoyancy in the shape of an enhanced faring to provide extra payload ready for fitting a skid beneath the Falcon to carry the ARIS Explorer with its tilt and roll assembly – along with any other systems needed.
Freezing temperatures could have been a problem, as every time the ROV was pulled from the water ice froze over it, but Jean-Baptiste Loiselet knew the thrusters would keep working as they have magnetic couplings rather than moving seals.